Forget Planet X: Solar System Shrinks

Space.com is reporting that Pluto's status as a planet may be in jeopardy.

The discovery of a nearly Pluto-sized object way out beyond the known worlds could jeopardize the status of Pluto as a planet, adding fresh fuel to an argument among astronomers that is likely to last years.

In the end, our solar system will either shrink to eight planets, grow to more than a dozen, or contain a glaring asterisk born of an emotional attachment to the diminutive Pluto.

The object announced this week, called Sedna, adds impetus to an effort by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) to define just what is and is not a planet. The IAU has no specific plans to directly challenge the planetary status Pluto. But the decision by a working group within the IAU could have that effect, an official said today.

"Whether or not one needs to do anything about Pluto will depend on what the definition of a planet will be," Iwan Williams, president of the IAU's Planetary Systems Sciences division, told SPACE.com.

The process could fester into 2006, when the group holds its next General Assembly. And whatever the ruling, there will likely be astronomers who try to keep the debate alive after that, another astronomer familiar with the process said.

Comments

[Yisrael Asper]

Petition called Create more Planetary categories and keep Pluto

http://www.petitionpetition.com/cgi/petition.cgi?id=6891

Petition to

Alan Boss, boss@dtm.ciw.edu, Head of the 13-member IAU group charged
with defining the word planet.

Whereas...The definition of the word planet has undergone many
changes starting with the supposedly nonfixed stars and sometimes
including the sun and moon. All this when it was thought that the
earth was the center of the universe. Such was the case with the
asteroids where the original definition was the minor planets between
Mars and Jupiter and so the first asteroid discovered Ceres was
called for want of a better term a planet and was dropped as a planet
when it was seen that it was really a member of a hitherto unknown
class of objects. Pluto too is a member of a hitherto unknown class
of objects and so like Ceres before it being the first of its kind
discovered it was called for want of a better term a planet just as
other galaxies were called nebulas and considered a part of our
galaxy when people did not know what they were. None of these
definitions are wrong it is just that they have added too our
language and in some cases are preserved only as archaic definitions.
People are used to many definitions in dictionaries sometimes they
are even when abstruse enough counterintuitive. People are used to
even only some definitions being shown in some dictionaries. Surely
since people only need a scientific definition of a planet in order
to not get confused about what laws apply but are used to the
classifications of planets in our Solar System as being a matter of
conventional rules beyond that, as witnessed by the continual
acceptance of Pluto and the historical evolutions of the term planet
within our solar system there is certainly no harm in keeping Pluto
as included among the planets as people can justly feel as they do
that there is scientific justification for the inclusion of Pluto
even when going beyond the usual characteristics of a planet that one
would look for. The gravitation of the planet Neptune was not enough
to explain disturbances in the orbit of the planet Uranus and so
under the mistaken assumption that there was a planet X that could
explain such disturbances it was predicted where that planet would be
and so was discovered Pluto. In the same way as our definitions of
the term planet has evolved as newer definitions for objects have
arisen but the older definitions are employed at times as well so let
it be with Pluto and perhaps it will more than just occasionally be
employed but continue to be in plain usage. The various definitions
proposed for the term planet are just part of what people already
think of as various definitions that at times they use for the term
planet just scientifically spelled out and would never be taken as
more. There should therefore be more categories of planets. This will
increase scientific description and accuracy. Their should be a
category called "Planetary Asteroid" which would include Ceres
because it is planet shaped and could even encompass Pluto if Pluto
is an Asteroid. Their should be planets called "Wandering Planets"
and "Far Distant Solar System Planets." All the planets except for
Pluto should be standardized for the universe in terms of their
definitions.

I, the undersigned, therefore petition the IAU to broaden the
definition of the term planet in accordance with the above with this
broadening preserving the full planetary status of Pluto.

Sincerely,

[shak]

If this is true astronomers should prove it!!!!

i still wont belive it its stupid!!!