I thnx that we should talk about PLUTO - Pluto discussion

PaganToris · 2002-08-31 09:24:11

Well i thnx that it would be pretty cool to start a forum bout pluto we could get together woth the forum adminastrator such as Phobos or Adrian but i would like to make a a forum called New Pluto it will all discuss the stuff bout pluto and what people thnc Just like this one my friuend Phobos gpot my to start posting becuse he is a RL friend so if i ever Ridicule or talk to him ijn a disoriented Manor u guys know why

Palomar · 2002-08-31 21:01:25

*Since Phobos and PaganToris are interested in Pluto:

This evening my husband and I were dining out. He happened to notice a mention in the restaurant about the discovery of Pluto [date, etc.]. I then recalled that Clyde Tombaugh, the discoverer of Pluto, retired in my small city. He died a few years ago. A school in our city is named in his honor, and he attended the Unitarian church about 3 miles from our home. After his death, a special "shrine" of sorts was made for him in the foyer of the church [I've not been inside the church; it can be seen from the street, passing by]. It's on the front of the church, and part of it is made up by a stained-glass window showing what appears to be a Saturn V rocket, planets, stars, etc. [I've only glanced at it, passing by at 25 mph on a busy street].

Who knows, I may have bumped into the discoverer of Pluto in the mall -- and never knew it.

Just thought you'd be interested to know this.

--Cindy

Phobos · 2002-08-31 23:00:10

Fascinating story. I wonder how Clyde would have felt about Pluto being stripped of its "planet" status. I remember reading somewhere that a museum in NYC was going to cut Pluto out of its exhibit on the planets. Pluto reminds me of the 90 pound weakling in school that never gets any respect. Actually though some people are starting to think there might be millions of Pluto sized objects in the Oort Cloud just beyond our detection abilities. So maybe Pluto has friends out there.

Christina · 2002-09-01 02:21:17

As there is so little known about Pluto, it hardly merits a forum.

Maybe after a mission actually gets there? If any of us are still alive then!

???

Adrian · 2002-09-01 04:45:44

I don't think I'm going to make a Pluto forum - this website is predominantly about Mars, after all. You can start up thread about Pluto in Science and Technology if you want though.

PaganToris · 2002-09-01 08:48:52

Cool as i will go and start a thread bout pluto yes yer right there is little to mich to know but i know that they have ice eskimos
:0

Palomar · 2002-09-01 10:37:46

Fascinating story. I wonder how Clyde would have felt about Pluto being stripped of its "planet" status. I remember reading somewhere that a museum in NYC was going to cut Pluto out of its exhibit on the planets. Pluto reminds me of the 90 pound weakling in school that never gets any respect. Actually though some people are starting to think there might be millions of Pluto sized objects in the Oort Cloud just beyond our detection abilities. So maybe Pluto has friends out there.

*I thought I'd heard awhile back that Pluto might no longer be considered a "real" planet, but I didn't know it might be taken out of museum exhibits as a fplanetary member of our solar system! Reminds me of the decision in the late 1980s by the major freight-train companies to eliminate the caboose from their trains. Pluto has always been "the caboose" of our planetary system since I've been alive.

Yeah, I agree with your sentiment Phobos. Well, Pluto has friends: Those of us who insist on keeping it on planetary status and a bona fide member of our solar system's family of planets.

Maybe we should start a "Friends of Pluto" drive, or something. You're winning me over, Phobos.

--Cindy

Phobos · 2002-09-01 17:56:53

As there is so little known about Pluto, it hardly merits a forum.
Maybe after a mission actually gets there? If any of us are still alive then!

And on top of that I don't think we'd want to encourage PaganToris too much. I think the next time he starts babbling about Plutonian Eskimos I'm going to move his posts to the E.T. forum.

*I thought I'd heard awhile back that Pluto might no longer be considered a "real" planet, but I didn't know it might be taken out of museum exhibits as a fplanetary member of our solar system! Reminds me of the decision in the late 1980s by the major freight-train companies to eliminate the caboose from their trains. Pluto has always been "the caboose" of our planetary system since I've been alive.

I think the reasons they want to remove Pluto as a planet is because its orbit is so elliptical and non-standard from that of the other planets. But it makes me wonder as to exactly what qualifies something to be a planet. It is size? Is it orbital mechanics? If we had a planet the size of Earth at the fringe of the Solar System with the same orbital characteristics as Pluto would it still be considered a planet? Who knows the sun might capture a fairly large interstellar planet into a Pluto-like orbit someday as it orbits about the galaxy.

PaganToris · 2002-09-01 22:40:39

Well now Phobos HOW DARE U MAKE A JOKE OF MY PLUTONIAN ICE ESKIMOS that was not verry nice of you
yah i heard it would to buy pluto is the best planet its nice and cold there *gets jacket on* and man well have ice cold water $ ever :0

Phobos · 2002-09-02 17:10:03

Oh man, this is going to get out of control.

Shaun Barrett · 2002-09-03 06:11:31

I think it must be the axe.

Themescules · 2002-09-04 13:43:51

Wow, we can have real fun with this one. So why don't we relieve any of the Planets of their "Planet" Status if they can't support life as we know it. We can say that Earth is the only real planet because it supports life. We can call the others Dead Masses that are just caught in the Suns gravity field. We should elevate the standard to become a Planet, as I said earlier the main standard being able to support life.

(Leave Pluto alone)

Themescules

Palomar · 2002-09-04 14:31:03

Wow, we can have real fun with this one. So why don't we relieve any of the Planets of their "Planet" Status if they can't support life as we know it. We can say that Earth is the only real planet because it supports life. We can call the others Dead Masses that are just caught in the Suns gravity field. We should elevate the standard to become a Planet, as I said earlier the main standard being able to support life.
(Leave Pluto alone)
Themescules

*Very good points you raise. Yes, just what are the criteria for a ball of dirt or gasses floating around sun to be considered "a planet"? Is no longer considering Pluto a planet [for whatever reason] some form of bigotry? Should we endorse a planets-with-life-only bias? Some bias that'd be! :0 If based on size, well--Mercury isn't much bigger than Pluto.

--Cindy

Themescules · 2002-09-04 17:54:16

Hey I have another Idea, we can make this a Baseball Game, there are 9 innings and 9 Planets, so because the "Powers That Be" are saying that Pluto and Mercury are of sub-standard "Planet Status" we will rename them, Pluto will now be called the Tampa Bay Devil Rays & Mercury will be called the Montreal Expos-But since Baseball has struck a new deal with can't consider Pluto & Mercury for Planet Contraction until after 2006! We can charge NASA and other space agencies with some sort of Luxury tax that will be spread out to give the lesser Planets like Pluto & Mercury equal time for more study & research! What do you guys think?

THEMESCULES

PaganToris · 2002-09-15 09:17:28

Well see i would love to make this a baseball game but unfortunitly i dont thnx non of u guys love ner Exeter,Ca
but yes LEAVE PLUTO ALONE
As the Eskimos on pluito would say
"when are we gonna get new people here, We are tierd olf eating frost bitten fish"
I thnx we should plan a trip to the cold pluto aboard
The mage School Bus

Themescules · 2002-10-07 15:27:00

I'm leaving a link that should be of interest to all of you Plutonians out there! Yo, you have a neighbor!!!

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm....world_4

CalTech2010 · 2002-11-30 22:28:55

What does make a planet a planet? I had a test in Earth Science, where our teacher asked us:

1.) Should Pluto retain its planet status?

Because our teacher was one of those "planetoid Nazis" in favor of calling Pluto a "Tran-Neptunian Object", I decided to have a little fun with him.

I wrote that it should stay a planet because:

1.) Its gravity has forced it into a spherical shape (unlike Aries, or whatever that asteroid with a moon is)

2.) It has enough gravity to capture a satellite (like Aries, but different because of #1)

3.) It has an atmosphere (unlike an asteroid, although "atmosphere" is a stretch )

4.) It always has been a planet, and even if scientists change its classification, only overzealous 2nd grade science teachers will try to explain the difference. If people already associate it as a planet, changing its status is only a way for them to feel good about themselves. The change wouldn't really accomplish anything, except for enriching the sex lives of some very boring MIT planetary geologists .

PaganToris, I saw a really funny cartoon somewhere of what Pluto would look like. It had some funny looking people (I think) and the ACME ICECICLE FACTORY.

KEEP PLUTO'S PLANET STATUS!!!
VOTE GEORGE W. IN 2004!!!

Josh Cryer · 2002-12-01 13:58:45

Charon is less of a moon and more of a companion object. They literally orbit each other in a sort of dance. I consider something a moon when it orbits a body without changing the orbit of its parent object by a very large degree like we have with Pluto/Charon.

Pluto probably should have never been called a planet in the first place.

CalTech2010 · 2002-12-01 23:48:19

The moon orbit part is true, but what about the social part of this equation? Won't the change just confuse and ruffle people's feathers unnecessarily?

I think Pluto probably should retain its planet status until we can prove that there are Trans-Neptunian objects larger than Pluto. Until then, I think it still deserves planet status. Maybe if we can find larger objects out there, we can come up with a new term that better suits "planet-like" objects that aren't like the Classical planets in most ways.

I like "Minor Planet" for Plutos, and "Noble Planet" for the larger, more well known planets. I don't like asteroid or planetoid for Trans-Neptunian objects.

Josh Cryer · 2002-12-02 05:34:24

Um, science isn't supposed to be about satisfying peoples ?nostaglia.? Pluto has, by in large, already lost its status as a planet in the scientific community. The public can call it a planet all they want, but the scientific community considers it a KBO. And there is plenty of evidence to suggest that that is what it is. One must note that ?planet? is a derivative of ?plane.? So it's not far fetched to suggest that offical planets must be on the orbital plane to even be considered as such.

Your suggestion is akin to saying that the earth is the center of the universe and that changing it because science has shown us a better view, would confuse and ruffle peoples feathers unnecessarily.

BTW, ?minor planet? is synonymous with asteroid, so I don't quite see its appeal (it's also an innacurate depiction of Pluto). At least ?planetoid? reserves planet within its name (although it too is synonymous with asteroid- but to a lesser extent since asteroids are generally between Jupiter and Mars).

Themescules · 2002-12-02 11:11:01

Hey I have another Idea, we can make this a Baseball Game, there are 9 innings and 9 Planets, so because the "Powers That Be" are saying that Pluto and Mercury are of sub-standard "Planet Status" we will rename them, Pluto will now be called the Tampa Bay Devil Rays & Mercury will be called the Montreal Expos-But since Baseball has struck a new deal with can't consider Pluto & Mercury for Planet Contraction until after 2006! We can charge NASA and other space agencies with some sort of Luxury tax that will be spread out to give the lesser Planets like Pluto & Mercury equal time for more study & research! What do you guys think?
THEMESCULES

I still think this solution is better!

CalTech2010 · 2002-12-02 15:00:16

I thought that "planet" meant literally in greek "wanderer". I don't really care if the "scientific community" changes Pluto's planet status, I'm just saying that we don't have enough evidence about its characteristics... yet. If a mission to Pluto reveals a small or almost non-existent atmosphere, I would support a name change. But for now, I think a lot of it is just speculation.
And unless you just want to be an egg-head intellectual in an ivory tower, we need to make science understandable to the average person, and not worry about minor technicalities that really won't get us anywhere in "the big picture". I think the change would only help the scientific community talk about the theories of planetary formation.

Not to mention that we wouldn't want to offend the Plutonian Eskimos by calling them inferior...

Themescules · 2002-12-02 18:41:29

Here's a related site of some interest.

http://www.planetary.org/html/UPDATES/P … ction.html

John_Frazer · 2002-12-06 18:55:33

Pluto's not completely without atttraction. It's surface ices should be an interesting mix of stuff from before the solar system formed.
There will certainly be continents of ices -all sorts of ices, and with low G and no atmosphere it should be a piece of cake to lift them into space to a space colony construction site nearby.
Problem is, you need lots of mirror area to collect sunlight. That's not really a problem; use power beaming to send power down to the facilities and explorers on the surface.

You should really think of some arguments and debating points to start a discussion rolling. Your comments about Mars stink. Recycled urine is pretty much what we've all been drinking all our lives, along with water dried out of corpses, and food grown in fields sown with human dead -in space, it's just a little more direct! It's also more pure, being distilled or reconstituted from H2/O2.
Also, at Mars, we can get all the H2O we want at the moons. Lots easier to get a self-sufficient base up there, and full G for the habs.

With modern high performance drives (nuclear pulse especially) the travel times to Pluto & back aren't as bad as we think, being restricted to expendable chemical rocket fireworks at present. The whole solar system is open to us, if we think ahead. (even out in the cometary halo -you just need a really big mirror!)

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#1 2002-08-31 09:24:11

Re: I thnx that we should talk about PLUTO - Pluto discussion

#2 2002-08-31 21:01:25

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#17 2002-11-30 22:28:55

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