Pluto now called a Plutoid
 

The International Astronomical Union has decided on the term "plutoid" as a name for dwarf planets like Pluto.


Sidestepping concerns of many astronomers worldwide, the IAU's decision, at a meeting of its Executive Committee in Oslo, comes almost two years after it stripped Pluto of its planethood and introduced the term "dwarf planets" for Pluto and other small round objects that often travel highly elliptical paths around the sun in the far reaches of the solar system.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/200806...calledaplutoid

I really hope I'm not only one who thinks this is stupid!

I thought it was dumb for them to remove pluto from the planets in the first place.

It definately makes teaching the mneumonic device of 'my very energetic mother just served us nine pizzas' interesting since 'pizzas' is now not a planet. :rolleyes:

I guess I was a "bad" teacher because my 3rd graders learned the mneumonic with all 9 planets, had to create their own mneumonic with all 9 planets and had to learn about all 9 planets.

my very energetic mother just served us...noodles!

No, you're not the only one who disagrees with this. I agree with you. I think Pluto should still be classified as one of the 9 planets in our solar system. However, I do like the dwarf planet idea though. I mean, you have look at how small Pluto really is. It's only about 1,400 miles across. Technically, if they don't want to classify Pluto as a planet anymore, then they might as well get rid of Mercury too. I mean, Mercury has hardly any shielding atmosphere, plus other than Pluto, not only is it almost as small, but it also has the most essentric of all planetary orbits. There's actually a satellite spacecraft headed to Pluto. As I can remember, I think it's supposed to arrive some time in 2015 or so. Maybe once it arrives and takes pictures of it's surface, they might change there minds about it. I guess with the average distance being over 3 billion miles from the sun, compared to us being 93 million miles away, it might take a while for us to get the pictures back.:p

Great thread!:)

I think it is stupid that a bunch of humans think that they can decide what is a planet and what isn't! It just reminds me of history when leaders decided which part of newly discovered land should go to which greedy country!

Keep it a planet for goodness sakes! :rolleyes:

I saw some show on National Geographic about why the astronomers de-planeted Pluto. They said the "definition of what a planet is" was not changed since like 16th century. Pluto does not have essential properities--I think rotational axis about itself, no amount of true planet core as measured when Pluto is closest to the Sun and it's rotation around the Sun is not quite consistent...

I thought it was interesting as to why they "de-planeted" Pluto. Yeah, it sucks. But if there were to be some kind of "standardization" of our "heavenly bodies" based on modern consistent relevant data...

Who should decide then?
http://members.aol.com/gamzemenali/private/vulcan.gif

I actually think Pluto has all the properties of what a planet should be. It has an atmosphere rich in nitrogen and it also has a moon. I guess astronomers don't see Pluto as a celestial body that orbits the Sun with sufficient mass and gravity. It's orbit is way out there, but Mercury has an unstable orbit too, with virtually no atmosphere, and if I'm not mistaken I don't even think Mercury has a moon. So, it confuses me why Pluto is not one of the 9 planets in our solar system, but Mercury is.

http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/c..._amg/Pluto.jpg

Well I don't know if the Vulcans will be the ones to decide...... :)