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Plutoid

It was already called a planetoid, I thought... or simply a pair of asteroids. Stop apologizing to Pluto and making it feel special! 😉
 
Mmmm our tax dollars are paying for this agency of people to sit around and rename Pluto...why?

Edit: I'm all for scientific advancement and space technology, but rose by any other name is just as sweet...do we really need people to sit aorund all day and decide for two years what the proper classificiation of Pluto ought to be?
 
Originally posted by: Parasitic
do we really need people to sit aorund all day and decide for two years what the proper classificiation of Pluto ought to be?
Yes. Think of the children!!! The children!!!
 
Originally posted by: Parasitic
Mmmm our tax dollars are paying for this agency of people to sit around and rename Pluto...why?

1) Pluto has not been renamed. It is still called "Pluto". As you noted in your edit, its classification has been changed (from planet to planetoid to plutoid) by the IAU.

2) With headquarters in France, the IAU is an international group of professional astronomers from 86 different countries. Members pay dues. Your "tax dollars" do not support this organization.

IAU home page.
Wikipedia entry for IAU.

edit spelling
 
Originally posted by: nineball9
Originally posted by: Parasitic
Mmmm our tax dollars are paying for this agency of people to sit around and rename Pluto...why?

1) Pluto has not been renamed. It is still called "Pluto". As you noted in your edit, its classification has been changed (from planet to planetoid to plutoid) by the IAU.

2) With headquarters in France, the IAU is an international group of professional astronomers from 86 different countries. Members pay dues. Your "tax dollars" do not support this organization.

IAU home page.
Wikipedia entry for IAU.

edit spelling

thanks for the clarification. :thumbsup:
 
That name is just dumb. It will only confuse people in the long run with the host of other possible classifications for these objects. Not only that, but they are solar-system centric, which is really short-sighted considering that we are on the verge of discovering smaller rocky planets around other starts. They should've stuck with "planet", "dwarf planet", and "asteroid". It is a good classification by size/mass and orbital properties.

Btw, they really need to resolve the whole Pluto/Charon thing. It really is a binary as the barycenter of the two bodies lies outside either one. They are really two binary dwarf planets.
 
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