Tag: it’s a planet dammit

…It was never yours to take away*.

In 2006, the International Astronomical Union, a global group of astronomy experts, established a definition of a planet that required it to “clear” its orbit, or in other words, be the largest gravitational force in its orbit.

Since Neptune’s gravity influences its neighboring planet Pluto, and Pluto shares its orbit with frozen gases and objects in the Kuiper belt, that meant Pluto was out of planet status.However, in a new study published online Wednesday in the journal Icarus, UCF planetary scientist Philip Metzger, who is with the university’s Florida Space Institute, reported that this standard for classifying planets is not supported in the research literature.

Continue reading Quote of the Day, You Can’t Give Pluto Its Planetary Status Back… edition.

Try to shrug this one off, planetologists!

The Hubble Space Telescope has sniffed out evidence of complex carbon molecules, the building blocks of life in this corner of the cosmos, lying on the frozen surface of Pluto. The distant dwarf world is known to harbor methane ice and other frigid compounds, but this is the first time scientists have suggested there could be other complex carbon chemicals, too.

Something is absorbing ultraviolet light on Pluto’s surface, and it may be organic compounds or some nitrogen-containing material, according to scientists at the Southwest Research Institute. That’s organic not as in life, but as in carbon-based compounds that make up the building blocks of life as we know it right now.

“Dwarf world,” huh?  Do “dwarf worlds” have complex carbon chemicals?  And what is SCIENCE going to do if those complex carbon chemicals get caught moving around and drinking each other’s helium fluids, huh?  What happens when the Mi-go announce that they’ve finally opened up their Yuggoth consulate?  Will it be a dwarf world then? Will it, SCIENCE?

WILL IT?

…Sorry.  This Pluto thing just gets me worked up, sometimes.  Especially since SCIENCE sneakily renamed it “134340.”  SCIENCE didn’t have to do that, you know.  That was just petty.

Via Instapundit.

Moe Lane