Under new guidelines for the indentification of planets there will now be 12 recognised planets instead of the current 9. With the new system, if a planitary body has enough gravity to pull itself into a sperical shape then it is a planet. The new proposal, which will soon be voted upon by a worldwide body of astronomers, puts planets into three groups:
The Classical Planets(8): Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
The plutons (small icy planets on the outer fringers of the solar system, of which there are currently 3, but this number may rise as new planets are discovered and identified, at the moment there are around a dozen other planets under investigation): The twin planets of Pluto & Charon (formerly Pluto's moon) and 2003 UB313 (now the furthest planet from the sun, it is bigger than pluto)
Ceres: Under the new system this former asteroid between Mars and Jupiter is now a planet.
see more at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4795755.stm
2006-08-16
00:55:33
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