[Sussex] OT: Bye-bye Pluto

[Steven Dobson]

John and everyone

On Thu, 2006-08-24 at 17:29 +0100, John Crowhurst wrote:
> According to the BBC news website, Pluto has lost its fight to be a planet:
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5282440.stm

I always knew I lived in a shrinking world, but I didn't think that I
was living in a shrinking solar system!  Whatever next, a shrinking
galaxy?; a shrinking universe!

> Perhaps when NASA's probe reaches it in 2015, they'll change their mind.

I saw a program a while back and appratently Clyde Tombaugh (no longer
with us) was thrilled when NASA asked him if they could send a probe to
his planet.

What gets me is the definition.  Pluto isn't a star and it is probably
massive enought to be round.  So what that it's orbit is not in the same
plane as the (other) eight planets.  So what that it has an enlongated
ordbit that for a very small part it brings it inside that of Neptune.
It is still clearly in orbit around the Sun.

I just wonder if, when the NASA probe get there, we finds that Pluto was
a planet all along and that it was hit (maybe by Charon) out of it's old
orbit and into current one.

Steve