Illinois Restores Status of Pluto as a Planet
For many years, Pluto was thought of as the farthest known planet from the Sun. It has a very unusual orbit. Since the year 2000, astronomers realized that Pluto was not like the other eight planets but very much like a new group of objects found in the outer solar system. In 2006, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) re-classified Pluto to be a dwarf planet. Now Illinois has restored Pluto's status as a planet and has officially declared March 13th "Pluto Day."
Comments:
Great. First they give us a Communist for President. Now they wish to write the planetary rules. And lets be fair. This isn't Illinois talking, it's Chicago.
To me Pluto is and always will be a Planet. There was never a good reason to declare it otherwise. Just someone trying to justify their job. 8O
<blockquote class="blockquote"><div class="italic"><i>Doug Bailey said:</i><br><br>Great. First they give us a Communist for President. Now they wish to write the planetary rules. And lets be fair. This isn't Illinois talking, it's Chicago.</div></blockquote><br>HAHAHAHA well said. Pluto is a planet in MY book. If it's more than 95% rounded, then it's got the gravity to shape itself. No asteroid can do that.
So now we're going to listen to a bunch of popularly elected politicians over the world community of planetary scientists who debated this long and hard and used it to further refine the definition of this class of objects? Having spent time with the astronomer who first discovered Charon (Mike Brown at CalTech), I think I'm more inclined to put stock in his view of the "controversy".
The text of the Senate resolution is pretty funny, and very sad. I'm hoping they'll get back to work on making Pi equal to 3!<br><br>Clear skies, Alan
So I guess this means that Eris is a planet too then?....it's bigger than Pluto!<br>Glad to see our tax dollars and our elected officials are spending their time (while spending our money) are being used for such a positive public good!!
What I think is the biggest joke is that by claiming that "<i>Dr. Tombaugh is so far the ...... only American to ever discover a planet</i>", they clearly have never heard of Brown and others!<br><br>Maurice
<blockquote class="blockquote"><div class="italic"><i>Doug Bailey said:</i><br><br>Great. First they give us a Communist for President. Now they wish to write the planetary rules. And lets be fair. This isn't Illinois talking, it's Chicago.</div></blockquote><br>Ummm... I think the American populace voted in our president... not a particular state that he was living in prior to election.
<blockquote class="blockquote"><div class="italic"><i>Doug Bailey said:</i><br><br>Great. First they give us a Communist for President. Now they wish to write the planetary rules. And lets be fair. This isn't Illinois talking, it's Chicago.</div></blockquote><br>It sounds like you need to do a little reading so you understand what communism actually is.<br><br>Clear skies, Alan
What? The Pres ain't no Communist! Illinois did however elect a guy with "what's the livn' on your head dude hair" to be Gov.
Yay, Illinois put the pizza back into:<br><br>My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizza pies.
I’m embarrassed to be a citizen of Illinois. If I had known about this bill I would have written my state senator and representative and asked them to vote against it. Governments at all levels have always bowed to scientific organizations regarding any such matters. Now we’re made to look foolish here in Illinois. The IAU had good reason to reclassify Pluto. The issue has been discussed here at length so I won’t go into detail. Unfortunately there are “stick in the muds” who want anything their fourth grade teachers taught them to remain true so they won’t have to tax their brains as adults.
Throughout the history of mankind new information has pointed out the fact<br>that what we once beleived to be true was in fact inaccurate.Almost always the reaction to the progress of knowledge has been negative.It took centuries for the Catholic Church to admit that Galileo is correct so it is not surprising that<br>the public clings to the notion that Pluto is a Major Planet. <br><br>Unfortunately,the politicians in Illinois have somehow had thier egos bruised by<br>what they precieve as a demotion in the status of Pluto and therefore their native son Clyde Tombaugh.Any true Astronomer realises that nothiung can lessen the contribution to science made by Clyde.Enough of the Grandstanding.Get over it.
What's in a name?, a rose by any other name would still a rose remain....Sorry Bill
If we can call an orbiting body around a distant star a planet, why is Pluto not. The IAU's argument never had merit. It was created like an insurance policy that specifies the benefit paid based on an impossible chain of events. It was as if the whole process was begun in an attempt to discredit Percival Lowell or hurt his family.<br><br>Any teacher who would grade a question about Pluto's membership as a planet "incorrect" based on IAU's edict would just have to be seriously anal retentive.
Also I wanted to invest by law my cat of the estate of venusian. But someone had put my body in a little room. A person sayd to me that they suspected I was a madman. Why?
What did you expect from the same group that brought us this WUNDERKIND as President? Next, they will pass a resolution repealing the Law..of Gravity.
In his book about his discovery (Out of Darkness, 1980) Clyde also questions it's planetary status. See chapters 12 (Problems of Pluto) and 13 (Decision to Continue the Search). It's planetary status was in question from the beginning starting at Lowell Observatory, before they even put out their first press release. So it's been from then until today. It is the press that created Pluto as a planet in the public's mind. As happens, it was a good piece of chest pounding press that everyone then latched on to. The amazing stroke of luck (not known to be luck at the time) that an object was discovered rouphly in the area predicted by Lowell's mathamatician, That Lowell observatory had built a dedicated telescope to look, That they found something relatively soon after resuming the search. For his part, Clyde in fact spent the next 13 years looking for something that would be more like the planet they were looking for. He even wondered back in the 30's if it shouldn't be considered (his words..) a "...super asteroid" It is only after finding nothing else within 30 degrees either side of the ecliptic that Clyde more or less let the press have it's way. The controversey contiued vaguely mostly in academia. There were a few articles in Sky and Telescope (1950, 1960, 1968) and Scientific American (1930) about it over the years.<br><br>To his credit Clyde stayed reasonably above the fray, because practically there just wasn't enough definitive info to argue much more about it. A number of astronomers who were aware of the problems sought to assure Clyde and those at Lowell Obs. that whatever the nature of the object, it was still a great discovery.
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