OT: The solar system has 12 planets

[Phoenix-D]

Pluto doesn't have an atmosphere, so that wouldn't count it either.

[DeadZone]

Oh really?
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/science/ever...tmosphere.html

Basically, my understanding of everything Ive read about Pluto, the atmosphere isnt exactly stable anyway

[Phoenix-D]

Temporary atmospheres don't count. The thing disappears when Pluto moves away, and its made from pieces of the surface that sublimate off, so the point still stands I think.

[DeadZone]

tbh though, its a theory that the atmosphere will disappear, we dont know for sure
Lets face it, it was "supposed" to have disappeared already

[Renegade 13]

DeadZoneMDx said:
Why cant it simply be

A planet is a solar body orbiting a star on its own stationary orbit, having some sort of atmosphere (remember, all nine "current" planets are believed to have one)

With a moon being a solar body that orbits a planet

There's a few reasons why this definition wouldn't work.

1: What do you do when you find a Kuiper Belt or Oort Cloud object the size of, say, Mars? Given current theories and models of solar system formation, it is possible, even likely that such objects exist at extreme distances from the sun. At such distances, there's no way for it to have an atmosphere...yet if it's as large as Mars, why shouldn't it be classified as a planet?

2: This classification does nothing to address the upper range of planetary sizes, those that are approaching sufficient mass to sustain deuterium fusion, at least for a time. Admittedly, the current definition that has been proposed does nothing to define an upper limit on planetary size, but I think they're planning to reveal one at the upcoming IAU conference in Prague. Your definition doesn't address the boundary between brown dwarf stars and extremely large gas giants.

3: It is theoretically possible to have two similarly sized planets orbitting around a common barycenter, both possessing an atmosphere and orbitting in tandem around their parent star. Your definition technically would exclude these as planets, since they do not each have their own stationary orbit around the star, so they'd essentially end up having to be classified each as a moon of the other, which wouldn't make much sense

4: Under your definition, would Mercury qualify as a planet? According to wikipedia's entry on Mercury, its atmosphere is described as below:

Mercury is much too small for its gravity to retain any significant atmosphere over long periods of time, but it does have a very tenuous atmosphere containing hydrogen, helium, oxygen, sodium, calcium and potassium. The atmosphere is not stable�atoms are continuously lost and replenished, from a variety of sources. The hydrogen and helium atoms probably come from the solar wind, diffusing into Mercury's magnetosphere before later escaping back into space.

This brings up the problem of defining what qualifies as an "atmosphere" and brings problems of its own, such as measuring said atmosphere on Kuiper Belt objects that are so far away as to render atmospheric sampling at our current level of technology impossible.

Whew, that ended up longer than planned. Please feel free to refute my arguments, since they probably have gaping holes in them

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Orbiting the sun and witin arbitrary% of round.

[Warshed]

This is where I say who the hell cares. Its a semantic debate based on the word "planet." You want more planets in the solar system, then you widen the definition, if you want less then you curtail the scope.

If they ended up defining Pluto as something other than a planet (or they added those other bodies), then all astronomy books produced in America (and possibly in the world) would have to be rewritten. Do you think that will happen? No. So guess what? While the astronomers go around saying there are X planets (and continue to debate it ad nausium), most people in the world and proboably most publishers would proboably continue to say there are only 9 planets, at least for awhile.

In the end who cares. Rather than wasting countless man hours on the debate of how to define the word planet, lets find out once and for all why the moon is made out of cheese and what type of cheese it is, or better yet astronomers should look for the location of heaven so we can send a space shuttle there and visit God.

[Kamog]

Is there a reason for the requirement that a planet has to be orbiting a star? What happens if a big round object forms in space away from any stars, but not massive enough to become a star itself. What do we call such an object?

[narf poit chez BOOM]

...Orbiting a sun or within arbitrary% of round?

[Renegade 13]

Warshed said:
then all astronomy books produced in America (and possibly in the world) would have to be rewritten. Do you think that will happen? No.

Yeah, the books will be rewritten. It wouldn't require much revision, and it'll give the publishers a chance to put out another version, thus forcing those who wish to keep their libraries up to date to buy yet another volume, making the publishers more money.

Of course, that doesn't mean that people and institutions will replace their books, not until they wear out anyways. Mostly it'll be schools that need new books, but they're too damn cheap to upgrade chemistry textbooks that are 30 years old, so this won't make them buy new books

(Yep, my old high-school uses 30 year old chem. textbooks. Sad, really.)