Track this topic | Email this topic | Print this topic

Check http://www.salon.com/tech/wire/2004/03/15/sedna/ here for details, but to sum it up - there's been a new "planet" discovered as the tenth planet in our solar system, Sedna. This excited me when I first found out, but it turns out some scientists believe, even though it's almost exactly the same as Pluto, it's not a planet.

This means we will have to change how we look at planets, and if we don't include Sedna as one then we probably won't be able to include Pluto as one. Lots of people's views are mixed on this, and I want to see what yours are.

(Btw, Sedna appears to have a sattelite, is three quarters the size of Pluto roughly, is a bit further away and the largest thing seen orbiting the Solar system since Pluto).

I think both Sedna and Pluto are planets, not planetoids. I grew up believing like everyone did Pluto was a planet and since Sedna is not much different, I believe Sedna is too. So what do you think?

This post has been edited by Iggy on 15th March 2004 23:03

--------------------

"Luck is my middle name. Mind you, my first name is Bad." - Rincewind

You can be as self-assertive as you like, just so long as you do what you’re told.” - Granny Weatherwax

"When Mr. Safety Catch Is Not On, Mister Crossbow Is Not Your Friend" - Sam Vimes to Detritus

I, too, grew up thinking that Pluto was a planet, so I hope that they classify them both as planets, and I think that they are planets.

--------------------

Wow. 1,000 posts.

I miss you all now that I'm in boarding school! ;_;

Well, option 5 is definitely out for me. I went with Pluto power, Sedna sucks.

--------------------

The clouds ran away, opened up the sky
And one by one I watched every constellation die
And there I was frozen, standing in my backyard
Face to face, eye to eye, staring at the last star
I should've known, walked all the way home
To find that she wasn't here, I'm still all alone

-Atmosphere "Always Coming Back Home to You"

I was brought up with 9 planets. Then I read some stuff about Pluto and decided "this ain't a planet, it's some sort of weird giant Kuiper Belt comet thing." So, I'd say the same would apply to Sedna as well, unless we discover something different about it.

--------------------

My soul is bound to the Mistress of the Afterlife, and my fealty is to her always. So let's just hope she doesn't use it as one of her ten daily meals.

Quote (The Celestial @ 15th March 2004 20:10)

I was brought up with 9 planets.

Nine planets includes Pluto, chief.

Doesn't it?

Anyway, I think it's pretty cool that we are finding new planets that we'll never really reach, but where do we draw the line? What size determines a planet? What distance from our sun?

I dunno.

Edit

Yeah, NOW I see what he was saying. Stamos.

This post has been edited by Rangers51 on 16th March 2004 21:47

--------------------

"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

Quote (Rangers51 @ 15th March 2004 22:16)

Quote (The Celestial @ 15th March 2004 20:10)

I was brought up with 9 planets.

Nine planets includes Pluto, chief.

Doesn't it?

He was basically saying he was taught there were 9 planets as a youngin', until he got older and read up on some jokers (scientists, whatever) that said Pluto's just a poser.

I was brought up on 9 planets, and I like it that way.

--------------------

The clouds ran away, opened up the sky
And one by one I watched every constellation die
And there I was frozen, standing in my backyard
Face to face, eye to eye, staring at the last star
I should've known, walked all the way home
To find that she wasn't here, I'm still all alone

-Atmosphere "Always Coming Back Home to You"

I don't understand how Sedna could have such a large and odd shaped orbit compared to the other planets. It really has to make a sharp turn at 870 billion miles from the sun or whatever it is. It's not really important to me though and since nobody is sure about anything anymore so I'll go along with the traditional idea that there are 9 planets. Sedna's just too far out there. It's pretty cool though especially with what they think is a red moon. Come to think of it, haven't scientists been suspecting a 10th planet for years now? Is Sedna what they were originally looking at? I remember them thinking there was a 10th planet because of seemingly odd gravitational effects on the outer solar system or something.

--------------------

FFXI (Siren server)
Tauu the Windurstian Tarutaru!
White Mage & Paladin

Pluto's orbit is out of whack compared to the other planets, too. It's orbit is much more elliptical and is tilted quite a few degrees.

And the Planet X thing was disproved when the Voyager probe went past Neptune. It discovered that Neptune's mass was a bit different than what they had thought, and after plugging that into their equations, they found out it all added up and there was no large PX. Besides which, Sedna's too small to have noticable gravity effects on the rest of the solar system.

--------------------

My soul is bound to the Mistress of the Afterlife, and my fealty is to her always. So let's just hope she doesn't use it as one of her ten daily meals.

Yay! 10 planets? I wonder of my future children will learn about 10 planets? That'd be cool, I think Sedna is a planet!

--------------------

Come, my love, I won't hurt you, I won't bite. Allow me to steal your love, to take you in my arms, and enter the sweet abyss.
~Kincaid~

I think there's just too much evidence against Pluto being a planet for me to keep on believing it, even though it's what I was taught in school (and am teaching in school right now, since our freakin' science text books are from 1987.) But why if Pluto's a planet would it be the only one with an elliptical orbit?

--------------------

Hip-Hop QOTW:

"Yeah, where I'ma start it at, look I'ma part of that
Downtown Philly where it's realer than a heart attack
It wasn't really that ill until the start of crack
Now it's a body caught every night on the Almanac"

"Game Theory"
The Roots

Did they run out of Roman gods/esses to name the planet after?
This is probably the first thing not on this planet that was named after something with a Native American source.

Quote (Gears @ 16th March 2004 14:31)

But why if Pluto's a planet would it be the only one with an elliptical orbit?

All the planets have elliptical orbits.

--------------------

"I had to write four novels before they let me write comic books."
-Brad Meltzer

Well, acording to recent posts, Sedna accually is only about 1000 square miles...small enough to orbit the sun. A planet by definition is something that orbits another body of much greater mass. Therefore, Sedna is in fact a planet. Also, NASA says that the Planets' orbit is EXTREAMLY eliptical...so eliptical that is takes about 10,000 years for it to orbit the earth. Crazy, yes?

--------------------

LOVE HINA PWNS YOU!! DONT ACT LIKE IT DOSENT!

Hehe, I'm still liking the idea of 10 planets. I wonder how many other ones are out there? It defies everything people have previously thought.

--------------------

Come, my love, I won't hurt you, I won't bite. Allow me to steal your love, to take you in my arms, and enter the sweet abyss.
~Kincaid~

Quote

A planet by definition is something that orbits another body of much greater mass.

Well, actually, that's the whole point. It's not. There is no straight up definition to decide when a planet becomes a planetoid, which is why there was so much debate about this. For years, scientists relied on a "we'll-know-when-we-see-one" method of distinguishing planets from planetoids, and so on.

Anyway, if what you say is true...all moons are planets. Man-made sattelites are planets. Cosmic dust is planets.

--------------------

"Luck is my middle name. Mind you, my first name is Bad." - Rincewind

You can be as self-assertive as you like, just so long as you do what you’re told.” - Granny Weatherwax

"When Mr. Safety Catch Is Not On, Mister Crossbow Is Not Your Friend" - Sam Vimes to Detritus

Quote (Dark Paladin @ 16th March 2004 16:44)

All the planets have elliptical orbits.

But all the other planets have the same form of orbit, while Pluto's is more elliptical than the rest, which is why it goes inside of Neptune's orbit sometimes.

--------------------

Hip-Hop QOTW:

"Yeah, where I'ma start it at, look I'ma part of that
Downtown Philly where it's realer than a heart attack
It wasn't really that ill until the start of crack
Now it's a body caught every night on the Almanac"

"Game Theory"
The Roots

Quote

Well, thats exactly the point...its not

Accually it is.

--------------------

LOVE HINA PWNS YOU!! DONT ACT LIKE IT DOSENT!

Quote (SilverSkye @ 17th March 2004 22:03)

Quote

Well, thats exactly the point...its not

Accually it is.

You may well be right, but please cast your eye over this first. http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98feb/pluto.htm

--------------------

"Luck is my middle name. Mind you, my first name is Bad." - Rincewind

You can be as self-assertive as you like, just so long as you do what you’re told.” - Granny Weatherwax

"When Mr. Safety Catch Is Not On, Mister Crossbow Is Not Your Friend" - Sam Vimes to Detritus

Quote (Gears @ 17th March 2004 18:11)

Quote (Dark Paladin @ 16th March 2004 16:44)

All the planets have elliptical orbits.

But all the other planets have the same form of orbit, while Pluto's is more elliptical than the rest, which is why it goes inside of Neptune's orbit sometimes.

Yeah, but that really wouldn't be a deciding factor in the whole Planet vs. Planetoid debate. If it were, then Pluto would be neither, since the degree that the orbit elliptically off-set has to do with distance, and planets and planetoids.
I think Pluto is considered a planet, because it makes Neptune "wobble" in a way that a planet would, and not a planetoid (what this means, and what distinguishes, I have no idea).
I have not heard anything about Pluto doing any kind of a wobble, so that may mean Sedna is a planetoid.
How they prove all this is the same way astronomers prove everything - guesses no one can disprove.

--------------------

"I had to write four novels before they let me write comic books."
-Brad Meltzer

Honestly I can't see how Sedna could be considered a planet...at least not without more information. Didn't they already declare that pluto was not a planet of our solar system? I thought I heard that somewhere. The definition of a planet much more scientifically complicated than just "something that orbits another body of much greater mass". Ya gotta have an atmosphere to be a planet, no? Does Pluto or Sedna have an atmosphere? I dunno, but i don't think they do, and to me that just makes them rocks floating in space that just happened to be unfortunate enough get sucked into an orbit around our Sun. There are millions of rocks in orbit around the sun, should we name them all and call them planets? Now sure they probably have to be a certain size to be called a planet, but really where does it end? And who cares anyway? Are we ever going to visit these planet(oid)s ourselves? I doubt it

--------------------

Jeez, another signature...i can't do this anymore, just kill me already!

Quote (SpacemanSpiff @ 21st March 2004 02:47)

Didn't they already declare that pluto was not a planet of our solar system? I thought I heard that somewhere.

Not true. They are still debating it, after all.

Quote (SpacemanSpiff @ 21st March 2004 02:47)

Ya gotta have an atmosphere to be a planet, no?

No. Mercury and Mars do not have atmospheres.

--------------------

"I had to write four novels before they let me write comic books."
-Brad Meltzer