planets
OMG! I am so outdated! Now we have only 8 planets and Pluto just became a dwarf planet in mid-2008. And Charon is actually just Pluto's moon and I told people it was the tenth planet!! I should seriously update myself, now and then. And stop spreading news I heard from other people. Shh..
3 comments:
No, we don't have only eight planets in our solar system. We have at least 13. The demotion of Pluto was done by only four percent of the International Astronomical Union, most of whom are not planetary scientists, and was rejected by an equal number of professional astronomers in a petition led by Dr. Alan Stern, principal investigator of NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto. The debate is ongoing, and it is perfectly reasonable to still consider Pluto and any non-self-luminous spherical body orbiting a star (in this case, our sun) as a planet.
Charon could actually be considered a planet in its own right because the center of gravity between it and Pluto is between the two objects as opposed to within Pluto itself. That means they orbit each other rather than just Charon orbiting Pluto (the latter would make Charon a moon). If Charon is counted as a planet, then the total in our solar system is actually 14.
The IAU definition makes no sense in that it states that dwarf planets are not planets at all. That's like saying a grizzly bear is not a bear. Also, the IAU definition classifies objects solely by where they are while ignoring what they are. If Earth were in Pluto's orbit, according to the IAU definition, it would not be a planet either.
Therefore, you're not outdated at all; the official definition will likely be revised again to include Pluto and possibly Charon as well. For now, you can count the following as planets in our solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake, and Eris.
Sorry, I forgot to add, the demotion of Pluto was done in mid-2006, not in 2008.
Wow!! Amazing!!! Thanks for the information!! Ok, now I feel a lot better. Lol..
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