WARNING: Highly nerdy entry
Today the International Astronomical Union has noted to strip Pluto of it's planetary status that it has had for the last 76 years, making our solar system have 8 planets. Instead of being considered a planet, they are considering Pluto as a "plutonian object" or "Small Solar System Object", making Pluto the construct for a new classification of object in the solar system.
Now I know that a lot of you who are reading this are going "WTF" and "Why in hell should I care", but I'm a nerd, a nerd who loves all things space related and I've been following this story for some time now. And well I think it is interesting. It's kind of sad in a way that we are losing a piece of our world by demoting it to basically something insignificant. I mean we all learned about the stars and planet when we were little, and the world has always been fascinated by those things, but to suddenly say no sorry you got to relearn all that is well pretty crappy. By the way I feel bad for all the little kids out there who voted in a recent study that said that pluto is there favorite planet (which by the way Pluto came in first out of the nine planets in this study).
However, from a science standpoint, I think that the new classification of celestial objects is really cool. Why you ask. Basically because this brings objects that we, as a community, have over looked for many years into scientific study because their priority has just risen from insignificant to this new plutonian construct. Objects such as Xena (Also known as 2003-UB313, a pluto sized object about 250 light years away from earth), Charon (known as the moon of pluto), and Ceres (an asteroid with some planetary properties).
Ok I'm done being a nerd today.
Take Care
~H~
Now I know that a lot of you who are reading this are going "WTF" and "Why in hell should I care", but I'm a nerd, a nerd who loves all things space related and I've been following this story for some time now. And well I think it is interesting. It's kind of sad in a way that we are losing a piece of our world by demoting it to basically something insignificant. I mean we all learned about the stars and planet when we were little, and the world has always been fascinated by those things, but to suddenly say no sorry you got to relearn all that is well pretty crappy. By the way I feel bad for all the little kids out there who voted in a recent study that said that pluto is there favorite planet (which by the way Pluto came in first out of the nine planets in this study).
However, from a science standpoint, I think that the new classification of celestial objects is really cool. Why you ask. Basically because this brings objects that we, as a community, have over looked for many years into scientific study because their priority has just risen from insignificant to this new plutonian construct. Objects such as Xena (Also known as 2003-UB313, a pluto sized object about 250 light years away from earth), Charon (known as the moon of pluto), and Ceres (an asteroid with some planetary properties).
Ok I'm done being a nerd today.
Take Care
~H~