Anyone aware of the new planet found?

Whatever the decision is... The solar system no longer have 9 planets, all textbook need to be rewritten...


For those still unaware of what is happen... can look here


http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/planetlila/


Not new anyway, it already a week long...

Not to kill the mood, but I find it hard to get excited about another freezing ball of rock. Certainly interesting, but nothing mindaltering. Astronomy isn't really my thing though.

Here's the thing. Twice before a "10th" planet has been discovered in our solar system since I was a kid, and both times scientists later deemed that it wasn't fit to be considered a planet. As far as I know, for completely arbitray reasons. I suspect the same will be true of this one.

Problem is that like the guy said, Pluto shouldn't be considered a planet. They've been trying to keep it in the group while keeping a dozen of other stuff that would qualify more than Pluto (including its own moon) out, and they won't be able to do it forever, that's where the problem is.

As Wereallmad just said, I've heard that "textbooks need to be rewritten" sentence several times already...

Aazealh said:

As Wereallmad just said, I've heard that "textbooks need to be rewritten" sentence several times already...

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This time round it really got to be rewritten... Because Solar system either stay eight or ten planets, there is no way it will remain at nine...


How ridiculous it will be when someone ask if an object is larger that pluto, why isnt it considered as a planet?

I have doubts that either will take place. Pluto will most likely continue being considered a planet. Everybody complains about it, but nobody has ever actually tried to change Pluto's status as a planet according to the International Astronomical Union and they're the people in charge of this stuff. They even have a section in their FAQ about Pluto and they don't seem to care much ( http://www.iau.org/ ). For one, tradition can be a strong thing and Pluto has always been considered a planet since it was discovered and there doesn't seem to be any pressing scientific reason or need to change that. Also keep in mind that even asteroids are known as minor planets, so really the designation isn't as unique as you think.

This object might not be that unusual, there are tons of objects out there in Kuiper Belt that are pretty big and there's bound to plenty that we haven't found yet. When things are floating that far out on the edge of the solar system and have such eccentric orbits, these discoveries will take time. Science also takes its time with these things, so it will be a while before the textbooks get rewritten if they do at all.

EDIT: Apparently the IAU is working to come up with some guidelines for calling something a planet and until they come up with one, this object will just be considered one more Kuiper object.

http://www.iau.org/IAU/FAQ/2003_UB313.html



*Armchair astronomer here*

kimchan said:

I have doubts that either will take place. Pluto will most likely continue being considered a planet.

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Well I get what you mean, but my best bet was still probably that this object is considered as a planet, so we have 10 finally


I see very little chance that it will remain as of nine, what if there are Mars like objects lurking out there as predicted by some scientist? When it is discovered you are not going to classified that as a planet?

Tradition is one thing, fact is another thing, sometime tradition got to change...

Imagine discovering an exo-planet with mass even greater than Jupiter orbiting a star body more than 40 AU away, you are joking with me that you are not naming it as a planet orbiting that star?

This time round IAU better comes out with a clear definition for a planet before more of such objects are coming out. And if the fact remain that all planet must be within 40 AU, it will definitely spark a lot of hot debate from astronomers from all over the world. (Dun forget Kuiper belt start its region from 30 not 40 AU)

Smith said:

This time round it really got to be rewritten... Because Solar system either stay eight or ten planets, there is no way it will remain at nine...

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Then again, the same thing happened many times in the past, and we still have nine planets. It wouldn't be just 10 planets either, going by that reasoning, more like 20+.

kimchan said:

Pluto will most likely continue being considered a planet. Everybody complains about it, but nobody has ever actually tried to change Pluto's status as a planet [...] For one, tradition can be a strong thing and Pluto has always been considered a planet since it was discovered and there doesn't seem to be any pressing scientific reason or need to change that.

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Yeah, I also don't think changing its status would be received very well...

kimchan said:

This object might not be that unusual

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That's what Wereallmad and I were saying I think, a lot of similar objects were found in the past, and nothing changed until now.

Yea I heard about this and I'm pretty much with wereallymad, Aaz and Kim on this one.

I would imagine our solar system would catch all kinds of junk on the outer edges from time to time. Does this thing a name yet?
If it doesn't have a catchy name based on mythology then why bother?