Solar System has 8 planets (Pluto demoted)
When Pluto was discovered in 1930, it was thought to be a one of kind anomaly, a small icy planetoid lost in the outer regions of the solar system. One common theory to explain its existence was that Pluto may have been a satellite of Neptune that had gone rogue. For those reasons (small size, possibly an escaped satellite), many scientists at the time thought that Pluto should not be considered a planet, but a majority of astronomers decided otherwise and Pluto became officially the 9th planet.
At the end of the 20th century with the invention of more powerful instruments, astronomers realized that Pluto was absolutely not an 'anomaly', it was discovered that Pluto is actually part of what is called the Kuiper Belt, a large ring of thousands of objects orbitting the outer regions of the solar system. In recent years, several planetoids totally similar to Pluto (though smaller) have been discovered in the Kuiper Belt, starting the debate on whether those new objects should be considered planets or not. Finally, last year, a new Kuiper Belt object named 2003 UB313 was discovered. This one being significantly bigger than Pluto, the number of planets in the solar system had to be revised, it was impossible to keep Pluto (officially part of the Kuiper Belt) as a planet while not giving the status to a similar bigger object. The IAU (International Astronomical Union) is currently meeting in Prague and will officialize the new definition of 'planet'. The definition has been made as simple as possible: Quote:
Ceres, an object in the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter. Charon, originally considered a satellite of Pluto but now regarded as forming a twin planet with Pluto. 2003 UB313, which is obviously a temporary designation, what is to become the 12th planet will receive an official name probably later this year. Picture of the new Solar System. Picture of the 3 new planets. Full IAU press release. All scientists agree that many more objects fitting the new definition of planet will be discovered in the Kuiper Belt in coming years, so the Solar System will likely expand to 20 or 30 planets. It is to be noted that the 'classical' 8 bigger planets are considered a special class of 'major planets', Pluto on the other hand is grouped with the other Kuiper Belt planets. So to make it simple, the general public can consider that there are 8 [major] planets (that won't change), and 4 minor planets which will be joined by many others in the coming years as the Kuiper Belt is being explored. |
awesome news !!
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it's amazing to know that we live at the same era of the discovery of new planets in our solar system |
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It's always been customary to name planets afer Greek-Roman gods, the modern IAU hasn't changed that, the new planet 2003 UB313 will also be named after a Greek-Roman god. |
Wow, this is just... WOW... it shows how something you always thought you knew was correct can change in an instant... charon is a Planet on par with Mercury, Venus and Earth..and not a moon... quite an upgrade eh?
wow...this turns my world Topsy Turvey... the Planets was one of those Static peices of info that didn't change... and now it has. I'm glad to see Ceres reaching full planet status, Ceres was such an under-rated goddess |
Oh my, what a surprise :D It's like when people realized the earth isn't flat!
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it's a great news really...can you tell me who are the founders of those new planets? and what will happen if earth will fall...where do you think we will go...?
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I'm glad they've taken the simple approach: 'anything perfectly spherical that orbits a star is a planet', simple, clear, and efficient. And it's about time we had an official definition of planet since we are currently discovering many planets orbiting neighboring stars as well. Quote:
Charon was discovered by Christy in 1978, it was first considered a satelitte of Pluto but later observation showed that Charon is not a satellite. A satelite is an object that orbits another object, the center of mass being located within the orbited object; but Charon does not orbit Pluto, Charon and Pluto orbit each other around a center of mass located in space between the two of them, the IAU now considers this to be a binary planet. 2003 UB313 was discovered by Brown, Trujillo and Rabinowitz in 2003, this one is brand new and is to become the 12th planet. Quote:
Warp/hyper drive allowing us to travel faster than light will probably be invented in a century or two, and we won't even have to explore space blindly to look for terralike planets, astronomers are confident that in a few decades new powerful telescopes will allow us to directly observe small planets in the neighboring star systems. We will discover terralike planets long before we actually have the technology to go there, and when we do, we'll know exactly where to go to found new colonies. Also, i personnaly think that the terraformation of Venus is possible, which would give us a second habitable planet right in our Solar System. Many people also think that Mars could be terraformed, but i think Venus is a more likely candidate, it's almost the same size as Earth (Mars is much smaller) and it has an atmosphere we can work with (Mars almost has none). Picture of what a terraformed Venus would look like. :D |
Just to note, this has not actually been agreed yet. The vote will take place on 24 August.
See the IAU website here If the resolution is passed, I will be slightly sad, as the IAU will then give 2003 UB313 a "proper" name, rather than leaving it with the unofficial name of Xena (which they would probably do if it was not considered a planet). Still, whatever they call it, I will always call it Planet Xena and it's satellite Gabrielle :) |
What IAU does now is, simply stupid. The definition that everything that has a round form will be a planet is absolutely ridiculous. From planetogenesis we have a good view what's a planet and what not. We have the rocky inner planets (4 of them) and a ring of rocky debris (Asteroids), which are not called planets, and gaseous outer planets (4 of them) and at least one ring of icy debris from the formation of the outer planets. That Pluto was supposed to be a planet too, was an error of the astronomers who, until the middle of the seventies believed that Pluto is as large as the earth.
If this proposal will be accepted we will have an inflation of 'planets' and nobody will know the correct number of them. Let's see what we have today. In the Asteroid belt there is Ceres and with Pallas and Vesta (diameter over 500 km) two additional bodies which are on the verge of being 'planets' in this definition. Objects of the Kuiper belt would need no more than 400 km. The already known 1000 km circus of objects there is Pluto, Charon, Sedna, Quaoar, Ixion, Varuna, 2003 UB313, 2003 EL61, 2006 FY9, 2004 DW and I won't continue with all the others larger than 400 km. Quote:
1. If you reach light velocity you create your own Black hole, so you will be crushed to singularity. 2. If you are beyond light velocity you have left our universe, because it is defined and restricted by light velocity. Quote:
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Good luck with your future plans, haku! |
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Am I the only one who has absolutely no interest in space? :laugh: |
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Not my ideal retirement home :D |
And there was a time when people were saying that escaping Earth's gravity will never be possible because it would require more energy than it was possible to produce… And there was a time when people were saying that going faster than the speed of sound will never be possible because no material would ever be strong enough to resist to the shock wave… And there was a time when people were saying that building an heavier than air flying machine will never be possible because anything heavier than air can't fly… And there was a time when people were saying that travelling above 100km/h will never be possible because human organs would be crushed by the air pressure…
At any given time in human history there are always people who say that this or that will never be possible, and yet it becomes possible a few centuries later. It's because those people try to imagine a future technology within the box of what is known at their time, they do not make a leap of imagination, fortunately there are also people who think out of the box, elaborate new theories, and make scientific breakthroughs, rendering possible what was thought impossible. I am convinced that it will be possible one day to build a faster-than-light ship, i am also convinced that such a ship won't rely on anything known today, it will use materials that haven't been invented yet and will rely on scientific principles that haven't even been theorized yet. I am confident that sience will make major breakthroughs in the way we understand matter, energy, and time and the way they are interraleted, and those discoveries that have yet to be made will render faster-than-light travel possible. And there will be a time, be it in 100, 500, or 1000 years, where the statement that faster-than-light travel is impossible will look as ridiculous as the statement that anything heavier than air can't fly looks ridiculous to us today. |
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On the other hand, I personally don't care if they class the found bodies as planets or as asteroids. They are still there and worth to be studied. |
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Gah. What a mess. The Kuiper Belt ha always looked fishy to me and it made Pluto's reign as a stand alone outer planet on shakey grounds. Fact is most scientists suspected there's a high possibility of bigger shaped objects beyond Pluto for a long time but didn't want to deal with technicalities. If you ask me there's an easy solution to this - since we're redifining the definitions lets do a thorough job at it - only objects that pass a certain diameter can be considered planets, while others remain planetoids. That would prevent the needless inflation of known planets as we discover the Kuiper Belt further. My personal preference is to just keep the status quo and have 9 planets which we all know and love. There are thousands of annomalies in astronimy, this could be jsut another one.
I really don't believe we'll ever develop warp/hyper-drives or anything of the nature since the law of nature telling us that light-speed is unachievable seems extremely firm. Mathematics pretty much proved it's a brick wall. And those worm-holes bending space...yeah sure they exist. But they're not exactly hallways through which you can just waltz through. In order to curve the time-space constant you have to apply ridiculous amounts of energy - we're talking millions of millions °C coupled with endless Nms pressure - any functioning worm-hole out there would therefore be pretty hostile to it's "users": a space ship would enter it and emerge on the other side completely annihilated in the form of basic particles - not even atoms, but rather electrons and quarks. About Venus: eventhough it's Earth's cousin (smaller than Earth by just a few hundred kilometres in diameter) it can't be mankind's final destination, even if it did have water. Simply because it's even closer to the sun than we are (which accounts for most of it's woes today), so when the sun explands into a giant supernova a few billion years from now it's entire orbit will be swallowed up along with Mercury's. So Earth (and possibly Mars) will still be our springboard towards teh stars. |
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There was a proposal with a fixed diameter limit, that limit was 2000km, which didn't solve anything since 2003 UB313 is well over the limit, and several other Kuiper Belt objects of similar or even bigger size will probably be discovered. And setting a higher limit was unpopular among astronomers since that would have meant downgrading Pluto. You'll notice though that in the proposal that is most likely to be adopted, the IAU makes a difference between 'major planets' and 'pluton planets' (Pluto being obviously part of the latter), and from what i've read, astronomers are also starting to use the term 'dwarf planets' for anything smaller than the 8 classical planets. So in a way, it's a 2-class system that is being created, 1 class for bigger planets alone on their orbits, and 1 class for smaller planets belonging to debris belts. So like i said in my first post, the general public who always want simple things can consider that there are only 8 (major) planets, plus a 'certain number' of dwarf planets that will keep growing in the coming years, which is not such a problem since the general public doesn't really care for smaller planets. This Wikipedia page explains how planets will be categorized… In any case, it is clear that the 8 major planets are set apart, and that Pluto is moved to a subcategory that will likely contain tens of dwarf planets. |
I agree the "two class" system is most likely to be adopted. It's fairly simple, even for those who have no interest, and the only drawback is downgrading Pluto to "pluton" or "dwarf planet". But I guess everyone will get over that in due course.
Argos I'm not being negative, just realistic :) Anyway, by the time mankind develops a suitable method of terrforming Venus, they'll be able to reach other planets that won't need terraforming, so the whole thing will be moot. Although I think it would be easier to terraform Mars. haku While it's true that many things have been deemed impossible, only to become reality later, the problem with FTL flight is that it has been shown to be mathematically impossible, which is a whole different thing. You would need a fundamental change in physics, or the discovery of a whole new branch of physics to bring it about. I'm not saying fast travel to other planets and solar systems is impossible, just that it's going to need something very different to get us there. In the meantime, we have to be looking at generation ships if we want to move to other worlds. |
I read on a french forum that they want to call 2003 UB313 --> Xena !!
woooow it's so funny :p like the old tv show LOL what do you think about that name? |
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