GIRTHQUAKE said:Javelin (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to Appleseed :
Pluto was revoked because Eris is bigger. So either Eris had to be a planet, too, or Pluto had to get demoted. Orbital mechanics is why it got demoted, and good thing, because we've discovered another 3 or so after Eris that would have had to be planets, too.
There's potentially 2 more added to that, too.
Pluto might eventually be called a planet again, funny enough; the statement of "must clear it's own orbit" was never phrased well, because the example given was because Charon was so huge it essentially made Pluto into a dual-body system orbiting a central point about ~20 miles over Pluto's surface (you can see the end result of this in the picture- that red spot on top of Charon is Pluto's frozen methanes and Tholin gasses that have sublimated over millennia). Problem is however, since we have begun finding exoplanets we have been discovering the extremes of this, like worlds bigger than Jupiter orbiting around each other in the same fashion- and under that IAU convention, they technically aren't planets despite being thousands of time's the Earth in size. New Horizon's also showed that there were no small asteroids or bodies within Pluto's gravity well that weren't orbiting it, either.
Damn I love astronomy.
IIRC the barycenter of the Earth-Moon system is something like 40 miles beneath Earth's surface. Not that far away from being outside the planet itself.
Really, anything that orbits something is a dual body system...
"Cleared its own orbit" kind of screws us as a planet, too, as we have discovered objects orbiting the Sun in the Earth-Sun LaGrange points 60 degrees ahead and behind Earth.... and damned if I can't remember their name.
Pete. (l33t FS) said:IIRC the barycenter of the Earth-Moon system is something like 40 miles beneath Earth's surface. Not that far away from being outside the planet itself.
Really, anything that orbits something is a dual body system...
"Cleared its own orbit" kind of screws us as a planet, too, as we have discovered objects orbiting the Sun in the Earth-Sun LaGrange points 60 degrees ahead and behind Earth.... and damned if I can't remember their name.
Centaurs? Earth has at least one, and at one point had a second moon from around 2006-2013 or so.
Yeah, that was another crack against the ruling too, because saying that partially invalidates the gas giants and all the more explanation of what it means just underscores that it needs a re-write. I think they'll likely go for a hard limit on size or mass just for the sake of preventing so many dwarf planets from cluttering it, or a new classification based on what the world is made out of since worlds like gas giants are only possible at 3-4 times the earth's size anyway.
johndej said:
As a guy who talks to customers about what we found this annoys me; I understand it, but it annoys me.
-tires down to the belts-
"Do my recall immediately, my car is unsafe!!"
too soon¿
In reply to Subscriber-unavailabile :
Not soon enough.
Oh yeah, there is a sequel to the "go the berkeley to sleep"
In light of the shark thread:
I got this one covered.
In reply to Apexcarver :
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