We’ll settle for nachos, then
August 25, 2006
What used to be “my very educated mother just served us nine pizzas” would now be “…nachos”.
Pluto is no longer a planet. Faced with the prospect of having to teach kids about a solar system with fifty-something planets, the International Astronomical Union met in Prague to discuss and finally define what makes a celestial body a planet. Now, a planet must (a) be in orbit around the sun, (b) be large enough that it takes on a nearly round shape, and (c) must have cleared its orbit of other objects. With these criteria, Pluto, whose orbit intersects with Neptune, is automatically disqualified.
Pluto may have been demoted as a “dwarf planet”, but it is made the chief among its kind.
The IAU panel chief, Professor Iwan Williams, says: “I have a slight tear today, yes; but at the end of the day we have to describe the Solar System as it really is, not as we would like it to be.”
The confusion on Pluto’s status - and the definition of the term planet - has been under fire. Since its discovery in 1930, Pluto’s position has long been in doubt, with the body being further away than the other planets and smaller than some of the moons in the solar system. Later, the discovery of other celestial bodies beyond Pluto, clumped together as the Kuiper Belt, contributed to the doubts.
In 2003, however, the discovery of another celestial body, currently called as 2003 UB313 (but is codenamed Xena), dealt what BBC News called the “critical blow” for Pluto’s position. The body is larger than Pluto, at 3,000 kilometers in diameter. Like Pluto, however, it is much further away from the Sun and its orbit also intersects that of Pluto’s - which automatically disqualifies it as a planet.
Now, 2003 UB313 is classified as a dwarf planet, along with Pluto, its moon Charon, and Ceres, the largest asteroid in the asteroid belt.
I suddenly fondly remember how I memorized the then nine planets of the solar system - with only the help of ABS-CBN’s Sineskwela but not with the use of any of those terms like the ones mentioned earlier. I just memorized it - Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune… I guess that’s all.
Last night I was watching CNN and was getting a bit amused with how newscaster Richard Quest was dealing with it. Some poignancy required, I guess.
Aside from the textbook changes everybody now has to live with - as well as the change in mindsets, as Huey points out - we’ll all remember Pluto as a planet for seventy years, and as Mickey Mouse’s loyal pet dog.
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ust nalang kayo muna kumampi. hahaha!
hahaha no more plutow pano na ang scorpio sa zodiac sign???? hahahha
Posted by caresse at August 29, 2006, 1:17 pm