Poll: Pluto, is it still a planet?

[keitarobg]

officially - NO! There's nothing to discuss. It's NOT a planet anymore. This is a stupid thread - it's like discussing why we call the blood pumping muscle in the chest a heart and not a wibller-dibbler.

 

[Ancientgamer]

If the scientists say it's not a planet, then it's not a planet. It's not like this is a subjective thing.

Didn't scientist also say that there was going to be an ice age in the 70's and say that there is global warming now? And, shortly after they said Pluto wasn't a planet, they declared some big ball of gas in another solar system a planet...

If the scientists say it's not a planet, then it's not a planet. It's not like this is a subjective thing.

they also said man cant fly, the victorians had discovered everything possible and the world is round (which it clearly isnt)

just saying "the scientists" arnt always right

As Good as it is to have a questioning mind, there comes a time when you have to realize that such things must be questioned for logical fallices, not what suites your fancy. This is quite obviously an entirely different case than the afformentioned examples. For one, This isn't an example of discovery or prediction, it's a simple matter of reclassification. Is it valuable? Yes. But it can't be "wrong" per-se since the only changed that faulty paremeters of what makes a planet, rather than what pluto was thought to be.

For another. Do I really have to spell out how stupid it is to say "They could say it's wrong in the future, so I'm going to stick with what they know is wrong now."?

I realise that, it's just that I'm arguing against people calling it a planet just because it's more convenient.

Umm, I think you actually agree with me.

 

[Cargando]

If the scientists say it's not a planet, then it's not a planet. It's not like this is a subjective thing.

Didn't scientist also say that there was going to be an ice age in the 70's and say that there is global warming now? And, shortly after they said Pluto wasn't a planet, they declared some big ball of gas in another solar system a planet...

If the scientists say it's not a planet, then it's not a planet. It's not like this is a subjective thing.

they also said man cant fly, the victorians had discovered everything possible and the world is round (which it clearly isnt)

just saying "the scientists" arnt always right

As Good as it is to have a questioning mind, there comes a time when you have to realize that such things must be questioned for logical fallices, not what suites your fancy. This is quite obviously an entirely different case than the afformentioned examples. For one, This isn't an example of discovery or prediction, it's a simple matter of reclassification. Is it valuable? Yes. But it can't be "wrong" per-se since the only changed that faulty paremeters of what makes a planet, rather than what pluto was thought to be.

For another. Do I really have to spell out how stupid it is to say "They could say it's wrong in the future, so I'm going to stick with what they know is wrong now."?

I realise that, it's just that I'm arguing against people calling it a planet just because it's more convenient.

Umm, I think you actually agree with me.

Am I? I haven't really been paying attention to what I've been typing...

 

[Cargando]

Anyway, in conclusion, it's undoubtedly, undisputably not a planet. For the time being.

 

[BaldursBananaSoap]

You heard it here first.

 

[Yegargeburble]

It's always a planet to me!

 

[Sightless Wisdom]

It still exists, but it's not correct to call it a planet. That's all there is to it....this thread fails.

 

[Terramax]

I just did my GCSEs and they actually had to write on the Physics paper, "Consider Pluto a planet," so I'm just doing what AQA told me when I say yes.

Then you are nothing buy a pawn in a fascist state!

j/k.

Honestly I'm not really bothered. Come to think of it, why did I read this thread in the first place. Has something happened recently to change people's perception of Pluto?

 

[Snowalker]

Isn't it considered a dwarf planet?... doesn't that mean its still technically a planet, but its also not a planet.... Yeah that made no sense, I'll just say I think its a planet.

 

[historybuff]

Scientists say it isn't anymore.


But I've had it drilled into me since childhood that Pluto was a planet. I mean, what about Sailor Pluto from Sailor Moon? So, I still tend to think of Pluto as one of the nine planets--er, see, right there. Eight planets. Eight. I can't get it in my head. I still think nine planets.

 

[thibodeauxj12]

imagine pluto and its moon as a binary system but with planets that ended up orbiting eachother therefore we have ten planets

 

[typhon923]

it's a dwarf planet it's in orbit of the sun so it's a planet the only reason they say it's not a planet is because they believe it's just a ice ball

 

[captainwolfos]

I said yes, because I recently had an multiple choice exam asking random questions, one of which being 'How many planets are in the solar system?' (As a side note, it was for an IT course, so a cookie will go to anyone who can give me some form of relevance between IT and the planets) and the only logical answer to pick was 9.

It turned out the exam hadn't been updated for a billion years, so it was the right answer.

In all seriousness, just because someone decided it isn't a planet anymore, doesn't mean it isn't one. If I called myself a stuffed toy simply because I have the pokability of one, doesn't make me a stuffed toy.

 

[annoyingfoothold]

How about we redefine a "planet" as "a celestial body on the following list"?

Mercury
Venus
Earth
Mars
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune
Pluto

It's certainly simpler than having to decide what exactly "clearly an orbit" is...

 

[Hollock]

If the scientists say it's not a planet, then it's not a planet. It's not like this is a subjective thing.

exactly why do people feel emotionally connected to the idea that pluto's a planet. It's still there it can still be youre favorite, if you have a favorite planet. But it's still there dont worry about it

 

[SilverHammerMan]

I liked Pluto dammit and I still consider it a planet regardless of it's official classification (which I believe is dwarf-planet) so while it's not really a planet anymore, I still think of it like that, it's hard to just forget it and relegate it to the category of space junk.
When the Plutonians find out about this we're all dead.

 

[Ancientgamer]

Hey, if Holst didn't need pluto, why should we?

 

[sam13lfc]

I still see it as a planet but technically it's not, there are bigger objects out there that could be described as planets.

 

[Phyroxis]

If the scientists say it's not a planet, then it's not a planet. It's not like this is a subjective thing.

I think in opposite of this statement. It is a giant land mass orbiting our sun that is capable at times of having its own atmosphere. That says planet to me, regardless of what scientists say. And seriously, these scientists have nothing better to do than debate whether or not Pluto should be categorized as a planet when we still can't get past our own moon?

Okay, what about the other 8,000 "giant" land masses orbiting our sun that are at times capable of having atmosphere? Aren't those planets? Pluto isn't a planet it's just a big hunk of rock and ice. It's less that a fifth the size of our own moon. Again, this isn't subjective.

Also, nice red herring, but how astronomers spend their time (which I'm actually pretty sure you know nothing about) really as nothing to do with this argument.

/thread


Pluto is just a more well known Kupier belt object. It has an irregular orbit, minuscule in size even when compared to our moon, and has thousands of other similar objects along with it in the Kupier belt. To call it a planet would mean we then need to recognize all the other thousands of Kupier belt objects, a task which I do not feel is a good use of anyones time.

Who really wants to memorize the names of 8000 pieces of space rock? I have enough trouble remembering the names of the planets as it is.

 

[Dr_Matt]

So I have to ask, why was it a planet to begin with if so many more simmilar rocks were floating out there too, why was it so much more special then all the other giant rocks ?

It was called a planet since when it was identified, it was a "large" body orbiting the Sun. Only later did more information become available, such as Pluto being a fairly insignificant rock orbiting with a great many other insignificant rocks, some larger and some smaller.

Until the IAU meeting, there wasn't a formal definition of what a planet is. Until recently, when observers started finding big objects in the vacinitiy of Pluto, and planets outside our own solar system, there wasn't a real need for a formal definition. The time was right to have a definition, so one was created and agreed on after considerable debate at the IAU. Pluto does not meet that definition, so it is not a planet.

This has been blown out of all proportion - classification in science changes all the time as more information becomes available. It also isn't the first time something that was called a planet has ceased to be called a planet - same thing happened to Vesta in the asteroid belt.