It's official: Pluto is no longer considered a planet. How do you feel about this?

Question

You can read all about it here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5282440.stm

Answer 1

another piece of knowledge i've taken as gospel is down the tubes. what's next, the glaciers are melting? sheesh, 1970s science is already outdated.

seriously, science constantly redefines its rules. as our knowledge changes, our concepts and theories should change to acommodate new facts. so clyde tombaugh lost his place in history? my feelings aren't hurt, but neptune now seems a whole lot further away!

Answer 2

at the same time as Pluto became stumbled on it became noted as a planet because it truly is what they were searching for and there became no reason to call it something else. because of its wildly eccentric orbit maximum astronomers seen it an escaped moon of Neptune rather than a planet, even with the undeniable fact that the excellence did not remember and in properly-known parlance it became seen a planet. even with the undeniable fact that, in the previous few years countless different bodies were stumbled on in the outer reaches of the picture voltaic equipment, some as tremendous as Pluto. With many more desirable anticipated to be stumbled on. So astronomers had an issue, were those all planets? Did we want a image voltaic equipment with dozens of planets, all even with the undeniable fact that the interior 8 frozen lumps orbiting in the outer reaches of the picture voltaic equipment? so that they desirous to go back up with an quite clinical definition of planet to differentiate the 8 major planets from all the different stuff orbiting out previous Pluto. and because that Pluto obviously had more desirable in common with a number of those outer bodies, it as categorised alongside with them as dwarf planet. honestly astronomers were basically correcting an old mistake, Pluto might want to by no skill were seen a planet in the first position. it really is no longer the first time this has exceeded off, for most a lengthy time period in the 19th century quite a few asteroids were noted as planets. ultimately astronomers realized they were too small to be seen planets and categorised them as asteroids. it really is how technology works, old blunders are corrected as our information will boost. The reclassification of Pluto is a sturdy party of how that occurs.

Answer 3

Sheeeeeeesh! Pluto hasn't drawn this much attention in 76 years. First of all, astronomers have been debating Pluto's status as a planet ever since it was discovered. Until now, there was no definition of what constituted a planet that could be agreed upon. Unfortunately for everybody that has believed Pluto to be a planet all these years (myself included) will just have to accept that it's not. But the alternative was accepting who knows how many more as yet unknown objects as planets. And somehow, calling Charon, Pluto's Moon a planet just doesn't seem right either. So, we now have an 8 planet Solar System.

Answer 4

How sad. I wrote several reports in elementary school about my favorite planet. Now all of those A's I received were all in vain. I used to use this to remember the planet names.. My Very Animated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pickles. Now that Pluto is gone... I'll need to remember another snippit... my very animated mother just served us ... ? ? what food starts with an N ?? Great. Sigh.

Answer 5

I'm sad...but this isn't the first time that a planet has lost it "status". Back in the 1800's there was a planet called Ceres, which was downgraded to an asteroid before the discovery of Pluto. I wonder if the general public was all up in arms about Ceres losing its planetary status...

Answer 6

I think its sort of "dumb" [for lack of better term] that after all this time, they choose to change it and make Pluto to not be a planet. It took them THAT LONG to figure out all its flaws as to why it cant be a planet? They should just leave it be as a planet in our solar system. Now all the kids who are in school learning about the solar system are going to be confused... Shoot, Im going into 10th grade and now what do I put when Im asked how many planets there are? =O

Answer 7

Pluto is smaller than our own moon. It should not be considered a planet. Its just another asteroid (a large one) that sits in the kuiper belt way out there in the solar system. I think it being erased from the list of planets was a good choice.

Answer 8

I think it's not right. Although they will classify Pluto as a "Dwarf planetary object" , I don't believe we should disclaim it after 76 years based on size. It orbits our sun and even is closer than Neptune at one point in it's orbit. I guess we will see in 8 more years when the space probe gets there.

Answer 9

It's a matter of symamtics. Pluto's still pluto - which is a relatively small hunk of rock, planetarily speaking, or really big, asteroidaly speaking.

They can call it whatever they like.


(an aside - it doesn't affect astrology - as good astroligers have already been including the major asteroids for years anyway)

Answer 10

I think that Pluto should never have been considered a planet in the first place. Pluto is even smaller than the moon, and something of that size should have been overlooked for a planet instantly.

Answer 11

I think Pluto should be blockaded for the Trade Federation.

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