Hm, we only have 8 planets now.

[Joe]

Yup. As of August 24th '06, Pluto officially isn't a planet, failing to meet the third condition of a planet's definition: "It must have cleared the neighborhood around its orbit. This means nothing of comparable mass may orbit near the planet. (While the phrase "comparable mass" sounds vague, there's no comparison between the eight planets and Pluto. The Earth is more than a million times as massive as any near-Earth asteroid. Pluto is only about 20 times as massive as Orcus, which has a similar orbit.)"

Not too big of a change, although it'll take some time to get used to not saying "Pluto" as you finish reciting the planets. Poor Pluto.

Makes you wonder, though, if there is alien life forms, if they're saying stuff like this about the earth. We're definately not a dwarf by any standard, but say someone lives on our moon (in this circumstance, the moon landing was shot in a studio, etc etc). Perhaps they think the earth is the sun or something. Or perhaps we're wrong. NASA just proved themselves wrong. Hm.

[CrAz3D]

aww, Pluto was discovered by a dude from here.

His daughter was a teacher at my elementary school & always talked about it to classes, it was cool.

[zorm]

Yup. As of August 24th '06, Pluto officially isn't a planet, failing to meet the third condition of a planet's definition: "It must have cleared the neighborhood around its orbit. This means nothing of comparable mass may orbit near the planet. (While the phrase "comparable mass" sounds vague, there's no comparison between the eight planets and Pluto. The Earth is more than a million times as massive as any near-Earth asteroid. Pluto is only about 20 times as massive as Orcus, which has a similar orbit.)"

Not too big of a change, although it'll take some time to get used to not saying "Pluto" as you finish reciting the planets. Poor Pluto.

Makes you wonder, though, if there is alien life forms, if they're saying stuff like this about the earth. We're definately not a dwarf by any standard, but say someone lives on our moon (in this circumstance, the moon landing was shot in a studio, etc etc). Perhaps they think the earth is the sun or something. Or perhaps we're wrong. NASA just proved themselves wrong. Hm.

NASA didn't make the decision, perhaps try reading the article before rambling mindlessly next time?

[rabbit]

Didn't only 10% of the IAU vote on this?

[iago]

Although Pluto isn't a full planet anymore, it's still a "Dwarf Planet", which we can only assume means that Dwarfs live there. 

Anyway, I think that our next order of business is to convince them to rename "Pluto" to "Yuggoth".  Anybody with me?

[Rule]

NASA didn't make the decision, perhaps try reading the article before rambling mindlessly next time?

No kidding.  Not even counting the retarded speculation at the end, his post makes no sense.

Yup. As of August 24th '06, Pluto officially isn't a planet, failing to meet the third condition of a planet's definition: "It must have cleared the neighborhood around its orbit. This means nothing of comparable mass may orbit near the planet. (While the phrase "comparable mass" sounds vague, there's no comparison between the eight planets and Pluto. The Earth is more than a million times as massive as any near-Earth asteroid. Pluto is only about 20 times as massive as Orcus, which has a similar orbit.)"

1) So if the 8 planets aren't comparable to Pluto, then nothing of comparable mass orbits near Pluto, and so condition three is met by Pluto.
2) If we just assume you're an idiot and ignore what you have in ellipses, wouldn't Neptune also not be a planet by the same condition you described?

As an aside, I think this "third condition" is really stupid.  If Mars managed to get pushed so that it's orbit intersects Earth's, would both Earth and Mars no longer be planets?

[Armin]

What does this mean for Mickey Mouse's dog, Pluto?

[Furious]

Although Pluto isn't a full planet anymore, it's still a "Dwarf Planet", which we can only assume means that Dwarfs live there. 

Anyway, I think that our next order of business is to convince them to rename "Pluto" to "Yuggoth".  Anybody with me?

Dwarves?

[Joe]

Furious owned iago.

I read the Wikipedia article on it, when looking at the top 50 wikipedia articles for the past month. I didn't read a news article on it, but I saw recent information on a Wikipage.

[iago]

Although Pluto isn't a full planet anymore, it's still a "Dwarf Planet", which we can only assume means that Dwarfs live there. 

Anyway, I think that our next order of business is to convince them to rename "Pluto" to "Yuggoth".  Anybody with me?

Dwarves?

Depends.  Tokien wrote several pages at the beginning of LoTR dedicated to "elves" vs "elfs" and "dwarves" vs "dwarfs".  Or maybe it was the beginning of The Hobbit, but I don't think so.  Either way, they're both valid spellings, according to Tolkien, and he chose one of the other (I forget which) for no other reason than consistancy. 

[MyndFyre]

Makes you wonder, though, if there is alien life forms, if they're saying stuff like this about the earth. We're definately not a dwarf by any standard, but say someone lives on our moon (in this circumstance, the moon landing was shot in a studio, etc etc). Perhaps they think the earth is the sun or something. Or perhaps we're wrong. NASA just proved themselves wrong. Hm.

I really don't understand why this would make you wonder about aliens.  In fact, I don't really understand the thought process you just described (perhaps there wasn't one).  

[Joe]

I was saying, if there's intelligent life out there, maybe they're thinking these same things about us. IE, we believe we revolve around the sun, and we call it a star. If there are moon men, perhaps they think they revolve around the earth, and that it's a star. A really funky one that only gives light from weird angles. And the other planets, to them, are other stars. I just think it's kind of cool.

[iago]

A really funky one that only gives light from weird angles.

Just for trivia, the Earth reflects to the moon the equivalent light that 9 of our moons would reflect on earth.  So imagine a clear night with a full moon -- on the moon, it would be 9x as bright.  Just saying

[Warrior]

I was saying, if there's intelligent life out there, maybe they're thinking these same things about us. IE, we believe we revolve around the sun, and we call it a star. If there are moon men, perhaps they think they revolve around the earth, and that it's a star. A really funky one that only gives light from weird angles. And the other planets, to them, are other stars. I just think it's kind of cool.

What the hell....somewhere an Astronomy teacher is crying right now.

[iago]

I was saying, if there's intelligent life out there, maybe they're thinking these same things about us. IE, we believe we revolve around the sun, and we call it a star. If there are moon men, perhaps they think they revolve around the earth, and that it's a star. A really funky one that only gives light from weird angles. And the other planets, to them, are other stars. I just think it's kind of cool.

What the hell....somewhere an Astronomy teacher is crying right now.

Why, exactly?  Everything he said is factually correct, as far as I can tell..