Quote:
Originally Posted by barx1963
Ron. The definition of "cleared it's orbit" is "a planet will have "cleared the neighbourhood" of its own orbital zone, meaning it has become gravitationally dominant, and there are no other bodies of comparable size other than its own satellites or those otherwise under its gravitational influence."
Obviously there will be asteriods meteorites etc crossing or sharing a planet orbits, but they are not of comparable size. As far as I am aware there are no objects of comparable size to Jupiter in it's zone. Pluto shares its orbital zone with Neptune and a host of Kuiper belt objects opf which it is not even the largest. Clearly it does not meet the definition.
The whole Pluto is a planet "debate" is IMHO rather silly, the IAU voted so as far as the IAU is concerned it ain't a planet. Of course, if you are not a member of the IAU one is perfectly at liberty to keep calling it a planet if one so desires!!
Malcolm |
Malcolm, That the Resolution was approved by a vote of 237–157, with 30 people indicating their abstention shows that a great deal of scientist disagreed and shows there is still a lot of disagreement on this subject including the head of the "New Horizons" space craft probe to Pluto.
What I did find interesting in my wiki article was the statement that only planetary scientist needed to vote.
Astronomer Marla Geha has clarified that not all members of the Union were needed to vote on the classification issue: only those whose work is directly related to planetary studies.
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If this discussion has done anything, is has provided information for people to make up their own mind.
your "Honest Opinion" is duly noted
Cheers
