Planets and Plutons - IAU Draft Definition

To be voted on shortly...

www.spacedaily.com/reports/The_IAU_Draft...And_Plutons_999.html

Just had a read of that, seems logical enough to me, except for classifying charon as a planet. to me it should remain a satellite.

Hi all,

In my view, its interesting, that they are keeping Pluto as a planet but at the same time making it separate from the classic planets with the new class of 'Plutons'. Creating this new class of plutons will allow for further planets to be found in the KB and the number will surely increase from 12 in time. Also the traditionalists probably didn't want Pluto to be demoted entirely from planetary status. Ironically Ceres used to be a planet in the 19th century when it was first discovered in 1801, but they discovered more and more of the same type of bodies, i.e. asteriods and Ceres was demoted from planetary status and now it could be back as a planet. What do others think?

Neill

Just had a read of that, seems logical enough to me, except for classifying charon as a planet. to me it should remain a satellite.

My thoughts exactly. By their own definition it shouldn't be because it orbits a planet!

Personally I think the plutons should not be planets. That would still give us 9 planets, just repalce Pluto with Ceres!

I like getting Ceres back as a planet. If all those small bodies way out can be plantes then Ceres should be too!

I'll reserve a more detailed response till we see how the voting goes.

Bart.

To me this doesnt look good, a pluton ???
Maybe this is a short term measure with a view to eventually demoting all these pluton down to KBO status, they are just waiting for all the planet pluto diehards to push on??

I do think that the proposal has holes in it. Pluto should have been declassified to a KBO, but that was never going to happen with so much sentinentality surrounding the issue. Pluto, Charon, Xena (UB313) etc are just larger KBOs and there should classified as such. Even with this Pluton classification, Charon is a satellite of Pluto and should not be a planet. Ceres as I said above used to be a planet but was demoted when numerous asteriods were discovered. They should called it at 8 planets with Pluto etc being classified as KBOs,IMO.

Neill