Took them long enough

[Lilac]

8 planets whee

[King_Furby]

I heard of that and can only say STUPID. Like WTF i like Pluto

[Lilac]

I heard of that and can only say STUPID. Like WTF i like Pluto

The IAU needs to set a standard that isn't arbitrary.  You can't have 'just pluto' as another planet without setting arbitrary conditions that, potentially, could lead to having several hundred (or thousand) objects being considered planets.

Previous to this, the only (recently) agreed upon factors of what was not a planet were
1: Any body large enough to ignite deuterium fusion, however shortly, is a brown dwarf
2: Any body too small to achieve hydrostatic equilibrium is too small to be considered a planet.

Between those two bounds are still over two dozen objects in the Solar System that qualify.  That gets to be rather silly when several hundred are expected to be found.  In the final agreement, it was chosen to make the definition narrow.

[Lancis]

and they have now defined Pluto as a "Dwarf Planet"

Dwarf Planet, Planet... geez, might as well kick the guy in the gnads who discrovered the planet in the first place... tho likely he's dead...

What will be next? Haley's comet not being a comet because we only see it every 75 years?

[Lilac]

What will be next? Haley's comet not being a comet because we only see it every 75 years?

No, after it burns out it becomes a damocloid instead of a comet.

[Lancis]

wonder how many more times we see it before that happens?

well more then 75 years maybe...

http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nineplanets/nineplanets/halley.html

[King_Furby]

This whole new thing about the planets is stupid. Why all of a sudden are they chaning it..they are just board thats all it is. Some hot shot wants to feel important

[Lilac]

wonder how many more times we see it before that happens?

well more then 75 years maybe...

http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nineplanets/nineplanets/halley.html

If it's been circling for the past 4500 years like some suspect, it'll take awhile.

[Lancis]

you know this is a random thought, but for those of you who have ever had an astrological reading, they are null and void now, as i understand it the formula in place uses the 9 planets... wonder if astrologists have caught up yet?

[Apple of Eris]

I last had an astroloical reading before pluto was discovered, so I'm ok.

My reading went something like: you'll be born in the next 100 years. Pretty accurate too

[Celestial Goblin]

It was a cool planet, though. Dark, lifeless, not explored much and well... cool.

And what is the goverment trying to hide? What's really on Pluto?

[GoldenChild]

This whole new thing about the planets is stupid. Why all of a sudden are they chaning it..they are just board thats all it is. Some hot shot wants to feel important

Mostly because they found a "planet" that was bigger then Pluto and the general fear was that by the end of the century we would have a solarsystem containing a few hundred planets, something that wasn't really appealing. And correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Pluto smaller then our own Moon? That would stand for something.

One draft I saw during the discussion was that we would have 12 planets instead of 9 (adding Pluto's moon, one "astroid" from the belt between Jupiter and Mars... and then the new one (Xena I believe they are calling it for now).

[Lilac]

Mostly because they found a "planet" that was bigger then Pluto and the general fear was that by the end of the century we would have a solarsystem containing a few hundred planets, something that wasn't really appealing. And correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Pluto smaller then our own Moon? That would stand for something.

Yes.  Less than a quarter, I think.

One draft I saw during the discussion was that we would have 12 planets instead of 9 (adding Pluto's moon, one "astroid" from the belt between Jupiter and Mars... and then the new one (Xena I believe they are calling it for now).

The proposed draft added Ceres (the asteroid), 'Xena' and Charon for certain, but there were another couple dozen bodies that would need consideration for adding, including Vesta, etc.  I rather like the final IAU definition, Pluto has roughly 150 known 'neighbors' sharing its specific orbit.  That's not particularly clear >_>