We now have only eight planets in our solar system

[Dartful Dodger]

Leading astronomers declared Thursday that Pluto is no longer a planet under historic new guidelines that downsize the solar system from nine planets to eight.

[grantspain]

what gives those lot the right to define a planet,now give me back my home planet

[ChadTower]

Soon, we will have 9 again, once someone discovers and submits Seph's mom for consderation.

[Dartful Dodger]

They need to find a way to downsize the rings around Uranus.

[Stingray]

What about the planet Rupert?

-S

[AtomSmasher]

Thats odd, last I heard they were going to increase our number of planets to 10 because of a new found planet past pluto.  Anyone else hear anything about that?

[Grasshopper]

Thats odd, last I heard they were going to increase our number of planets to 10 because of a new found planet past pluto.  Anyone else hear anything about that?

Yes, that's what I heard.

Also, they were talking about redefining a planet to be any object with enough gravity to form into a sphere. This would mean that a large number of asteroids would be reclassified as planets as well.

[ChadTower]

And Louie Anderson.

[Dartful Dodger]

I brought this up at work and our resident geek is claiming that only a few astronomy guys voted on this so it doesn't really mean anything.

This breaking news may be forgotten as quickly as the newspaper it's printed on can be recycled.

[shmokes]

I've read stuff about there being a high possibility and a lot of evidence that there are more planets in our solar system, and I'm not talking about that tenth planet they found recently that was even smaller than Pluto.  I'm talking about planet(s) that is(are) bigger than Jupiter and probably gas giants. 

For one thing our solar system is enormous.  The probe we launched recently bound for Pluto was scheduled to arrive 10 years after it's departure.  It's the fastest ship we've ever sent out.  If it continued on past Pluto at the same speed it would take another 10,000 years just to reach the edge of our solar system.  10 years to get to the most distant planet, 9,990 years to get from there to the edge of the solar system.  Most people truly have no concept of how big space is, and specifically how big our solar system is.  Including me, frankly.

Secondly we have observed changes in planetary orbits that could only be caused by enormous gravitational pull from objects beyond pluto.  Really really really big objects.

. . . and so on.

edit: fixed some embarassingly bad math

[ChadTower]

I hear that there is credible intel that there are WMD on Pluto.  That is why we will soon no longer have a 9th planet.

[Grasshopper]

I hear that there is credible intel that there are WMD on Pluto.  That is why we will soon no longer have a 9th planet.

I think you just pulled that theory out of Uranus. 

However, it's still more plausible than the theory that there are WMDs buried somewhere in Iraq.

[ChadTower]

Pluto is buried somewhere in Iraq.

[Stingray]

Pluto is buried somewhere in Iraq.

Mickey & Minnie will be terribly upset to hear about this.

-S

[shmokes]

 . . . my eyes

[hypernova]

Such terrible humor.     The horror...the horror............

Anyway.  I read a brief reason why.  Something about the fact that Pluto's oblong orbit overlapping Neptune's disqualifies it as a planet, based on the new "definition," which included something about the orbit of the planet.

Anyone know and can explain it a little furthur?

[HaRuMaN]

For one thing... all  planets orbits around the sun lie in one plane... except for pluto.

[AtomSmasher]

I don't think I'm alone when I say I'd like to see more and more planets fall under the ruthless domination of our solar system.


Whether they find a life there or not, I think Jupiter should be called an enemy planet.

[NightGod]

Anyone else read the short story a few years ago about launching a probe to Jupiter in 2010 or so that was capable of near real-time video streaming due to laser communications technology and them finding a whole dead civilization of intelligent jellyfish type creatures that died when that comet hit? Was kinda a cool concept, two intelligent civilizations that near to each other missing a connection by a few years.

[ChadTower]

You just described the Middle East.

[MYX]

and them finding a whole dead civilization of intelligent jellyfish type creatures that died when that comet hit? Was kinda a cool concept,

Not for the Jellyfish

[AtomSmasher]

Dateline Aug24: Czech Republic courtesy Reuters News

In an unprecedented action, the entire scientific community today has issued the statement that the Sun no longer exists. This statement was issued less than 10 hours after they had deemed that Pluto no longer held Planet status in the Galaxy.

Instead of being called "The Sun" as it has been for time immortal, the brain trust of learned Astronomers have declared that from this day forward the large fusion powered star that provides light for this part of the Milky Way Galaxy will be called "The Mega-Light of Enormous Glare" or more commonly, "The Bright Object in the Sky During Daylight Formerly Known as the Sun" .

It was debated and concluded that since larger stars are in the universe that make the TBOITSDDFKATS pale in comparison that it could no longer be called a Sun.

Therefore, all text books, history books and popular music will have to be rewritten to include "TBOITSDDFKATS" in place of "The Sun". For example, the popular song that was known as "I"m Walking in Sunshine" will now be called "I'm Walking in TBOITSDDFKATSshine".

Of course, eyeware makers will be scrambling to offer TBOITSDDFKATS-glasses with each vying to be the first to offer the much coveted item.

Said one scientist, PhD holder Michael I. Doanhavabrain, "This was a really cool idea."

CCSI Reuters CZ, Prague

[Howard_Casto]

I'm no expert on hwo astronomers waste their time and our tax dollars by defining planets, but from what I understood Pluto was downgraded because of it's size and only it's size.  


Pluto has an elliptical orbit, but it is a stable one.  Back in the day, any heaveny body rotating around a star was consdiered a planet, as it should be.  But before this conference started, they decided that other ridiculous things, like size should determine planetary status.  The new 10th planet (Xena) as well as one of neptunes moons and a large asteriod were supposed to be bumped to planetary status based on size alone.  This is why pluto got nixed because it is smaller than all of these and the scientists didn't want to include all of these odd-ball objects.  

In my humble opinion, that is the biggest pile of b.s. I've ever heard.  First off a moon of a planet can't be a planet.. we have a name for that, it's called a moon.  You know, an object that orbits a planet.  Secondly, Xena is a planet, put it in, end of story.  Lastly... that asteroid doesn't exactly have a stable orbit and, well it's an asteroid which is a chunk off of something else.  Give it time and enough stuff wil be sucked into it so that it's a planet, but for now it's a planetoid at best, not because of size, but shape.  I think we would all agree that a blown up planet isn't a planet anymore, it's the remains of a planet.  Well that is exactly what an asteroid is.  


Long story short, nothing interesting in space has happened for a while, so these wize-guys got together and did this to get some free publicity for the science and screw with our heads.  Remember, pluto has changed status about three times since it's discovery.  

[Stingray]

Dear Mr. President,

There are too many planets, please eliminate four.

Thank you,

-S

[AtomSmasher]

I'm no expert on hwo astronomers waste their time and our tax dollars by defining planets, but from what I understood Pluto was downgraded because of it's size and only it's size.  


Pluto has an elliptical orbit, but it is a stable one.  Back in the day, any heaveny body rotating around a star was consdiered a planet, as it should be.  But before this conference started, they decided that other ridiculous things, like size should determine planetary status.  The new 10th planet (Xena) as well as one of neptunes moons and a large asteriod were supposed to be bumped to planetary status based on size alone.  This is why pluto got nixed because it is smaller than all of these and the scientists didn't want to include all of these odd-ball objects.  

In my humble opinion, that is the biggest pile of b.s. I've ever heard.  First off a moon of a planet can't be a planet.. we have a name for that, it's called a moon.  You know, an object that orbits a planet.  Secondly, Xena is a planet, put it in, end of story.  Lastly... that asteroid doesn't exactly have a stable orbit and, well it's an asteroid which is a chunk off of something else.  Give it time and enough stuff wil be sucked into it so that it's a planet, but for now it's a planetoid at best, not because of size, but shape.  I think we would all agree that a blown up planet isn't a planet anymore, it's the remains of a planet.  Well that is exactly what an asteroid is.  


Long story short, nothing interesting in space has happened for a while, so these wize-guys got together and did this to get some free publicity for the science and screw with our heads.  Remember, pluto has changed status about three times since it's discovery.  

While Pluto does have a stable orbit, I heard the reason it was downgraded from a planet because every 248 years Pluto's orbit is inside that of Neptune's.  I'm sure size did have something to do with it though, I mean, if it was the size of Jupiter then no one would be debating whether or not it is a planet, even if its orbit does intersect another planets. 

Regardless of the reason, its idiotic to no longer call it a planet.

[Vigo]

The new 10th planet (Xena)

They named the 10th planet after "The Warrior Princess"?

[Howard_Casto]

Yup.... it's official name is pt210x or something like that, but it's nick-named Xena.

[ChadTower]

Dear Mr. President,

There are too many planets, please eliminate four.

Thank you,

-S

The military is already spread way too thin to do this.

[ChadTower]

Yup.... it's official name is pt210x or something like that, but it's nick-named Xena.

The name  "Xena" is frequently heard associated with this planet; this name comes from an  internal cod name that we used before we publically announced the existence of the planet. Other code names have been "Santa" (2003 EL61), "Rudolph" (the moon of 2003 EL61), "Easterbunny" (2005 FY9) and "Flying Dutchman" (Sedna), and "Gabrielle" (the moon of 2003 UB313). We use these names internally simply because they are easier to say and remember than things like 2003 EL61 or S/2005 (2003 UB313) 1 . There is no chance whatsoever that these will become the permanent names of these objects! As soon as the committees make their decisions these objects will  get real names. When we first announced the existence of these objects we thought that the real names would be decided in days to weeks, not months to years so it never occured to us that these code names would last more than a few days. We hope the committees decide soon  so people can start getting used to the real more dignified names soon!

source

[jbox]

I'm sure size did have something to do with it though

Doesn't it always?

[thebrownshow]

I'm no expert

Finally he admits it.

[lokki]

Yup.... it's official name is pt210x or something like that, but it's nick-named Xena.

And it has a moon called... Gabrielle....

http://www2.keck.hawaii.edu/optics/staff/mvandam/gabrielle

Funny
http://www.reallifecomics.com/archive/060817.html

[hypernova]

Finally, Pluto is no more...

Now if we can just get timecube brought into the classrooms, we can call it a day!

[lokki]

Update Looks like Xena has been oficially named it is now called Eris.
The funny part is that it's moon (formerly gabrielle) has been named Dysnomia the spirit Lawlessness.   (Xena - Lucy Lawless)

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060914_eris_named.html