Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Pluto Red Outpost of the Final Frontier
Pluto was kicked off the list of major planets. It seems to have responded by turning a mysterious red color, according to scientists working with the Hubble Space Telescope. They're now trying to find out what makes its surface so dynamic. From the Space Telescope Science Institute.
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Here's a debunking for you. Pluto IS still a planet. Please do not blindly accept the controversial demotion of Pluto, which was done by only four percent of the International Astronomical Union, most of whom are not planetary scientists. Their decision was immediately opposed in a formal petition by hundreds of professional astronomers led by Dr. Alan Stern, Principal Investigator of NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto. Stern and like-minded scientists favor a broader planet definition that includes any non-self-luminous spheroidal body in orbit around a star. The spherical part is important because objects become spherical when they attain a state known as hydrostatic equilibrium, meaning they are large enough for their own gravity to pull them into a round shape. This is a characteristic of planets and not of shapeless asteroids and Kuiper Belt Objects. Pluto meets this criterion and is therefore a planet. Using this broader definition gives our solar system 13 planets and counting: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake, and Eris. At the very least, you should note that there is an ongoing debate rather than portraying one side as fact when it is only one interpretation of fact.
ReplyDeleteAs a dynamic world with geology and weather, Pluto shows it has more in common with the other, bigger planets than it does with most Kuiper Belt Objects except the few large ones, which should be considered planets too. Most KBOs in Pluto’s orbital path are tiny and do not have these features. These images show that before making definitive classifications, we should first get the data and analyze it; otherwise, we are defining objects without knowing significant factors about them.