OT: The solar system has 12 planets

Renegade 13 · #1 August 16th, 2006, 07:39 PM

Astronomy.com Link
Wikipedia Link
International Astronomical Union Link

According to the committee set up to determine what the definition of a planet is, we now have 12 planets...pending approval from the IAU (International Astronomical Union) on August 26. If it's approved, the asteroid Ceres, Pluto's moon Charon and the Kuiper Belt Object UB313 will all be considered planets, bringing the total to 12. There's also about a dozen others that would be candidates for planetary status.

Cool, eh?

Atrocities · #2 August 16th, 2006, 07:48 PM

They don't know what they are talking about. Its all a big conspiracy designed to scare us into believing that Earth is a uniqe planet and that we are all alone in the universe.

Slick · #3 August 16th, 2006, 09:18 PM

Yes, and there is another planet in Earth's precise orbit exactly on the opposite side of the sun at all times so it can't be seen unless you leave the planet.

Wade · #4 August 16th, 2006, 09:38 PM

Yes. In colaberation with the civilization on that planet we developed stealth, fiber optics, silicon chips, etc...Truly. I read it some where.

Yimboli · #5 August 16th, 2006, 11:07 PM

its probably on the internet somewhere....

Renegade 13 · #6 August 17th, 2006, 01:31 AM

Does no one have anything non-nonsensical to say? I know, that didn't make a whole lot of sense...oh well.

cshank2 · #7 August 17th, 2006, 03:22 AM

UB13 should be renamed to something better. (Seriously, it sounds like something from the AvP universe.)

... Let's pitch some ideas.

Randallw · #8 August 17th, 2006, 05:13 AM

I assume you disagree with Xena rather than just UB313. I hope they choose something better otherwise in 1000 years a little girlboy asks her 4th clone father what does Xena mean.

Black_Knyght · #9 August 17th, 2006, 05:21 AM

I've been reading a lot about this lately. Seems there's been a big ongoing debate over WHAT constitutes a planet, and what DOESN'T, and somewhere in the process even ol' Pluto almost ended up on the chopping block. For awhile there it was up in the air as to whether we had anywhere from 8 to 12 planets in our neck of the woods.

dogscoff · #10 August 17th, 2006, 05:32 AM

I think the solution they came up with (include pluto etc) is a cop out. Pluto isn't a planet, it's a trans-neptunian ice-ball, and all that other junk out there should be given the same status. They should go even furher though: Having calssified those things as "ice worlds" they should reclassify saturn, jupiter, neptune and uranus as "gas giants", since they have very little in common with anything else currently called a "planet" and that leaves Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars and Ceres to be the "Rock worlds." Things like Vespa which aren't even spherical should remain asteroids. Not sure wwhat to do with moons mind you - is our moon just a satellite or is it a rock world? I mean technically it's both, so what would you call it?