[meteorite-list] Astronomers to Decide What Makes a Planet

From: Darren Garrison <cynapse_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed Aug 3 10:45:31 2005
Message-ID: <4ol1f1hhb3l704ho4tj78gb4gne335c47o_at_4ax.com>

On Wed, 03 Aug 2005 02:11:55 -0500, "Sterling K. Webb" <kelly_at_bhil.com> wrote:

>
> Three, he's IN THE RIGHT here. I happen to agree with this myself and
>I thought so before I ever heard Brown's name. I said to my self, I said,
>"Self, if it's twice as big as Pluto (a planet), then it's a planet!
>Wonder who found it? Guy's gonna be famous!"

I just can't get over thinking of KBOs as overgrown comets, not tiny planets (never mind for the
moment that we don't know exactly what KBOs or comets are made of yet) and I just can't bring myself
to call something that would half sublimate away if brought to 1 AU a planet. But if they DO insist
on calling this latest KBO a planet, then for sake of consistancy they darned well better call every
other known large KBO a planet and call Ceres a planet and call every large KBO found in the future
a planet. That way, when our Solar System ends up with 30 or 40 named "planets" they'll have to
come up with the longest darned mnemonic device and interest in space science will shrink even more,
being that the harder to memorize the list is, more kids will be turned off by science at an early
age.

Free the Solar 8!
Received on Wed 03 Aug 2005 10:45:47 AM PDT