Comments on: Discovery of New Planet Brings Pluto into Question

By: Barbarian Envoy

Barbarian Envoy — Wed, 03 Aug 2005 09:50:06 +0000

Boys And Celestial Rocks

For crying out loud, there’s another rock above us. Not to rain on the parade, but who cares what the ice cube is called! I want to know if it causes tsunamis and earthquakes, or came from another solar system....

By: McGehee

McGehee — Wed, 03 Aug 2005 01:53:36 +0000

We need to appoint a Lord High Bubba of Defining Things. Then he could go on worldwide TV and announce, "It's a planet because I say it's a planet."

By: Alan Kellogg

Alan Kellogg — Tue, 02 Aug 2005 15:08:16 +0000

I expect the minimum size for a planet will be Pluto. Any smaller and it would be a planetoid.

So the definition (description) would go something like: Planet: Any cold celestial body either orbiting a star or alone equal to or greater in size than the planet Pluto.

Though I am of the opinion that situations such as the Earth/Luna system really should be recognized as double planets. The trouble here is coming up with a definition (description) of what a double planet system is.

By: Russell Newquist

Russell Newquist — Tue, 02 Aug 2005 14:51:04 +0000

It's not so much that it would be changing the definition as that it would be actually defining the word in the first place. There currently really isn't an accepted standard for what constitutes a planet. It's been suspected for years that there are probably dozens, if not hundreds, of objects in the Kuiper belt that are considerably larger than Pluto - which itself is only slightly more than half the diameter of our moon.

By: Fred

Fred — Tue, 02 Aug 2005 14:26:30 +0000

Rather than rewrite history, let Pluto be grandfathered as a planet and apply modern criteria to new discoveries.