Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Our solar system's a mess!
Ugh, according to space.com, our solar system could become quite a mess! Why does it feel like this is just to protect the Pluto's status as a "planet" rather than downgrade it just because there are folks out there who want to defend it's title?? Hopefully this'll all go back to the drawing board and get a rewrite!
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7 comments:
heh heh heh.
if it helps any, the state of our solar system is independent of any attempts of big brained humans to classify things in orbit.
that is, the solar system isn't getting messier...just our attempts at defining orbiting bodies.
: )
Puny humans!
Call me a curmudgeon -- being a curmudgeon, I don't care -- but the nine real planets are dictated by the mnemonic "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pickles." End of story.
I read an interesting article about how geologists don't care that Europe is considered a continent, even though it's physically attached to other "continents" - that they use other labels where appropriate - continental shelf, etc - that actually describe the physical parts. Kinda brought it all home for me.... That's why I'd be ok with Pluto still being classified as an honorary planet, but not labelling other, newly found things that are that small as planets.
Why don't scientist concentrate on something useful like figuring out how Noah got all the dinosaurs onto the Ark?
Wouldn't it be grand if there were some aspect of Earth that brought into question its being a planet, and we were faced with the prospect of downgrading ourselves?
Would they have the balls to do it?
Or, if we dropped Mercury, Venus, and Earth, the mnemomic would shorten to an acceptable "Mother Just Served Us Nine Pickles," IMHO.
I love the idea of deciding Earth doesn't count as a planet, Rich! That'd be funny!
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