Comments on: News: Eris more massive than Pluto!

By: Bobby

Bobby — Fri, 16 May 2008 18:19:12 +0000

your website rocks

By: Mike Welford

Mike Welford — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 03:29:26 +0000

I could go on and on about the problems with the “orbital bully” definition of planet, but instead I’ll address your statement “Words have impact.”.
We have a planet walk in my town. And such is the impact of the word planet, there no pictures or descriptions of satellites at any of the planet stations. So planet walkers don’t learn of the varied moons of Jupiter ( huge volcanic plumes on Io) or cryovolcanoes on Triton. The planet walk is pre-Huygens so I can’t blame them for not telling how amazing Titan is. I know educated people with an interest in science who don’t know know anything about these little worlds. Such is the impact of the word planet.
I suppose an intelligent reasonable person could know about these little worlds and not admit that they are planets. But, such is the impact of the word planet, many never get the chance to decide.

By: Pluto isn’t even the biggest non-planet

Pluto isn’t even the biggest non-planet — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 18:25:40 +0000

[…] BadAstronomy has a good post on how the mass was measured. […]

By: ceticismoaberto.com » Blog Archive » Plutão era o décimo planeta (ou 11o, 12o…)

Sat, 16 Jun 2007 01:38:18 +0000

[…] Inicialmente descoberto em 2005, Eris — conhecido então como “Xena” — já havia sido notado no ano passado como fisicamente maior que o velho Plutão. Agora, novas pesquisas confirmam que Eris possui também mais massa que Plutão, jogando mais água fria nas esperanças de reabilitar o antigo nono planeta do sistema solar. Eris possui uma órbita um pouco mais distante, mas é quase um terço maior, o que significa que desde o início da história humana tivemos oito “planetas” no sistema solar, e uma grande série de outros objetos além de Netuno, sendo Plutão na melhor das hipóteses o segundo maior deles (ainda está aberta a possibilidade de encontrar objetos maiores que Plutão e mesmo Eris). Astrólogos e mesmo charlatões como Däniken, Sitchin e companhia, que adoravam um sistema solar com nove (ou dez…) planetas, continuam a reescrever suas idéias baseados no que a ciência de verdade descobre sobre o mundo real que nos cerca. [via BAblog] […]

By: Maurizio Morabito

Maurizio Morabito — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 23:12:35 +0000

Let me end my contributions to this blog by saying that for once I really do not understand Phil Plait’s careless attitude towards the definition of “planet”.

Of all people, the Bad Astronomer should be the one pushing forward the idea that every rock in the Solar System, no matter how big or small, can reveal a treasure of information about the past evolution of the Sun and all its planets, satellites, asteroids, etc, including Earth of course.

By choosing to stick to 8 “planets” instead, we would stifle further research.

Imagine going to convince Congress that you need a couple of billion dollars to go study a few dwarves in the Kuiper Belt (See? It does not even _sound_ PC).

More likely than not, people (and Congress people especially) will find it absurd to throw money into yet more space probes: after all, by the end of the decade every “planet” will have been visited at least once, so why bother with more exploration?

“Those planets will still be there in 10 or 100 years”, anti-space naysayers will state, “so we can just send a probe a decade and it’ll be fine”.

All of this, when we are learning that satellites that looked liked boring pieces of ice are in reality extremely interesting objects? (Check http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=22840 “Cassini Finds Saturn Moons Are Active”)

Oh please!!!!

By: Drawback In The Sad “Dwarf Planet” Saga « Maurizio - Omnologos

Drawback In The Sad “Dwarf Planet” Saga « Maurizio - Omnologos — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 22:53:04 +0000

[…] The more time passes, the more unbelievable the whole thing is. Now Eris has been discovered to be larger than Pluto. […]

By: Maurizio Morabito

Maurizio Morabito — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 22:32:03 +0000

Definition of “planet” for the Average Joe and Jane: “round-ish object that orbits around a star and does not orbit around another round-ish object”.

Who can get simpler than that? And what would be “soooooooooooooo wrong” with it?