So, no one's posted anything about that 10th planet yet. Is it big enough to be what they're looking for?
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
So, no one's posted anything about that 10th planet yet. Is it big enough to be what they're looking for?
So, no one's posted anything about that 10th planet yet. Is it big enough to be what they're looking for?
5 Comments:
Ah, but if Pluto is not a planet, then why does the periodic table go "Uranium - Neptunium - Plutonium" ?
:-)
Once Pluto is no longer a planet, we'll just redefine the periodic table. Plutonium becomes Kuiperium in honor of all the massive KBOs and the IAEA scrambles to rewrite all the nuclear non-proliferation treaties to rely on precise scientific descriptions (i.e. atomic number) rather than soething transient like element names.
Or, instead of deciding that Pluto isn't really a planet, there could be lots of really small planets! :)- (Is there an actual scientific definition for what constitutes a planet?)
As an astronomer, I've never understood the fascination with whether big rocks are planets or not. There's a virtual continuum of planetlike objects out there in all sorts of sizes, and drawing a line in the sand and saying that these are planets and those are not is so arbitrary.
lame!
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