Gary, List,
If it's not a planet, why do we call it a dwarf PLANET?
Do you refer to everyone you know who is less than
five-foot-ten as a "dwarf person"? So-and-so isn't a person;
he's a dwarf person? Adjectives do not negate the thing
they describe.
So, we have dwarf planets, gas planets, rocky planets,
etc, but they're ALL planets. I take the IAU at its literal
word, not its irrational intent. As far as I am concerned,
Pluto is a planet, Ceres is a planet, Eris is a planet,
Makemake and Haumea are... You get the idea. Since
Vesta (now that we've seen it) probably formed "round"
and has been chipped away at ever since, it's a planet
(and likely Pallas and Hygeia too).
There are at least 23 planets, (despite the eccentric
opinions of an Uruguayan cosmologist to whom I would
suggest in reply that Brazil is a nation and Uruguay is
only a dwarf nation).
IAU: "A planet is a celestial body that (a) has sufficient
mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so
that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round)
shape, and (b) is in orbit around a star, and is neither
a star nor a satellite of a planet." I would add the phrase
"unless distorted by dynamic equilibrium," a condition
that unless added would eliminate Jupiter and Saturn
and even the Earth as planets!
Planet quarrels. Good times...
Sterling K. Webb
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Gary K. Foote" <[email protected]>
To: "Meteorite List" <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, February 02, 2012 6:55 AM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Petition For a Pluto New Horizons Stamp
But Pluto isn't a planet anymore. Its a dwarf planet. Maybe they'll
make
really tiny stamps ;)
Gary
On Wed, February 1, 2012 11:46 pm, Sterling K. Webb wrote:
Of course, in March 2015, if all goes well, the
New Horizons mission will reach Pluto. Don't
you think it will deserve a stamp of its own to
correct that 1991 stamp when it gets there,
in 2015?
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