Hi, Elton,
When the number 100,000 was coming up, Brian Marsden
of the Minor Planet Center, suggested that he could award
it to Pluto. This was just a backdoor invite to demote Pluto
to "minor planet" but the outrage was loud and long and
didn't go away. This was the opening battle in the Let's Dump
Pluto Battle. The actual first shot was a paper by a member of
Marsden's staff entitled "Is Pluto Just A Giant Comet?" the
year before. Marsden has been trying to get jurisdiction over
Pluto for a long time. If it isn't a planet, why does he want it
so badly?
My point is that he and the MPC still do not have jurisdiction
over Pluto, Ceres, Xena, and the Gang because the IAU didn't
make them "minor planets" (now called Small Solar System
Bodies), but created a whole category for them, possibly
unintentionally, but they did it, and we're stuck with what they
said and voted for, whatever their intentions. What I can't
understand is why the group that wanted Just Eight Planets
on the one hand and Little Junk on the other hand think that
this Resolution gave that to them, because it didn't.
Sterling K. Webb
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mr EMan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Sterling K. Webb" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Meteorite Mailing
List" <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, September 12, 2006 11:20 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Pluto is Now Just a Number: 134340
What happened to the initiative a couple years back
were Pluto was also given a Trans Neptuneian
Object(sic) and/or Minor Planet number(?) of 10,000
--it was going to be dual slotted. I don't remember
the details very well but I am sure someone here has
them.
Elton
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