10th Planet

[jaden10]

Ok I have been reading about this all day now and it has been a hot topic with some friends of mine.

The main discussion is thisL Should the new planetary body found beyond pluto a planet or part of the Kupiter belt?

Give your answer and please if you could a reason behind it. This should prove interesting.

My answer iis yes, I belive it is a planet, why? Just because it is about three times as far from the sun as is Pluto doesn't mean it isn't. and until we can either get a probe out there or have hubble turn it's ever powerful eye on it, there is no reason to not call it a planet. BTW the planets temporary name is 2003 UB313.

[aAnubiSs]

Stable orbit around the Sun? What's the size - I know it's larger then Pluto(or atleast there's a good probability that it is) but dont know the exact size. Believe I read something about a 3000km diameter

EDIT: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4730061.stm#map

[Qasim]

What is the Kupiter belt?

[jaden10]

Before I start, I stand corrected, 2 new planets were found.
All the info can be found at these sites.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8760309/
http://www.space.com/scienceastronom...ew_planet.html

This is a direction cut and paste from MSNBC.COM


best estimate is that it is 2,100 miles (3,360 kilometers) wide, about one and a half times the diameter of Pluto.

The object is inclined by a whopping 45 degrees to the main plane of the solar system, where most of the other planets orbit. That's why it eluded discovery
It does have a stable orbit, which if it travels roughly the same speed around the sun one orbit is almost 1200 years (rough estimate, don't know for sure, but it seems to be a safe bet)

I feel it safe to give you this URL for what the belt is. and while I am at it I will include what the oort cloud is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuiper_belt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oort_cloud

[Caldor]

The first person to link this with Sitchinism will envoke my request to provide a rationalistic argument for the "truths" of it.

[jaden10]

Can we NOT bring L. Ron Hubbard into this? It's bad enough I live next to the city that houses the World Capitol of Scientologists, and you DON'T want my opinion of that little family gathering.

[Jarnin]

Ok I have been reading about this all day now and it has been a hot topic with some friends of mine.

The main discussion is thisL Should the new planetary body found beyond pluto a planet or part of the Kupiter belt?

Give your answer and please if you could a reason behind it. This should prove interesting.

I honestly don't understand what the debate is. It's a Kuiper-Belt Object to scientists, because it's a descriptive name, and scientists like descriptive classification systems.

Here's the debate in analogy: You have a Botanist, a Gardener and a Mechanic walk into a park.

The Botanist says "Wow, look at that Acer saccharinum!"

The Gardener says "That's a very nice silver maple!"

The Mechanic says "Are you two talking about that tree?"

So who is using the wrong classification? The answer is none; they're all calling the object what they know it is, and what they always call objects like it. The only difference is that the Botanist and Gardener are being more descriptive than the Mechanic, but only because they know better.

If you're going to call a KBO a planet, then you better understand that there are hundreds of those ice balls floating around our sun. How well are you going to be able to rattle off the names of the 809 planets of the solar system?

[lionel_pendergast_rocks]

i think it's cool and weird at the same time that there is another planet out there, and yes, i do believe it is a planet. i believe it is a planet because it is larger than pluto, which is already considered a planet. and it also has an orbit around the sun. as for the object smaller than pluto, i dont know. i think it's weird because it has taken us all this time to discover it. i mean, we've had the hubble telescope and everything, and it seems to me that we were more concerned about finding things outside our solar system that we didnt bother to look inside it.

im willing to bet that there are already sites out there that are trying to get this new planet named something to go along with the other nine, rather than just 2003 UB313 (hey thats almost like a stargate planet designation...). anyone want to do that for fun here? come up with new possible names? they would have to be roman gods if you wanted to be serious, but who said anything about being serious... i dont know, its just an idea.

[Loaf]

if its bigger than pluto its a planet, and i'm sure we'll discover many more planets out there in the years to come

[Carl]

I believe it's a planet. There's got to be a reason why it's so far out and it's understandable that it's taken them two years to notice it move because of the difference in our movements around the sun.

[Darkstar]

wow this is late for me but i walked past this thread and just had to take a look inside.

as far as the 10th kbo or whatever you would want to call it being a planet i guess the scientists or whoever in the 30s should have reserved the classification of pluto being a planet since now we have found another and being the smart sods we are, are able to come up with a good ideas as to how many more there are of these planetoids for lack of a better name.

if infact this new object is a greater size or mass than pluto then its a planet but if they are insistant on calling it a KBO then they should not consider pluto as a planet and instead should classifie it as a KBO unless it has a different orbit to all of the other planets in a way it can be known as somthing different to a planet and that would mean pluto is a planet and these objects left over from the formation of the solar system are just rocks.

[Eoin]

i have a theory why it took them all this time to find the new planet(or is it a planet)
ok it starts like this...A few years ago there was this alien called anubis who hurtled a gigantic rock at the planet earth, but lucky for us earthlings we have a team of highly trained airman who took a cargo ship upto the gigantic rock to place a naquada enhanced nuclear bomb on it, but they found out that the core of the gigantic rock was composed of naquada which would have blown up earth if the bomb went off on it, so they created a hyperspace window large enough for the rock to fit through and come out on the opposite side of the planet, and after some time the gigantic rock was caught by the gravitational force of the sun and thrown into orbit around the sun,
so they waited a few years to announce to the people of earth that there is a new planet so they wouldnt cause suspicion to the astronomers who seen the gigantic rock in the first place and told the US airforce about it so they could deal with it.
(the above is only a joke)
LOL...i av a great imagination


P.S isnt it wierd after being thought that there is ony 9 planets in the solar system and now they found another 1. Its kinda cool

[IMForeman]

Mondas! Cybermen are late though. They should have been here 19 years ago.

-IMF

[_Owen_]

There is a very fine line between planet, and rock. It takes a close look at the planet and an analysis of its' features to determine, what it should be considered. Variables, such as, size, density, components, core sturcture, gravitational field, and relative orbit, are just a few of these variables. Unfortunatly I have not read very much about this, or these planets yet, I have been away, and didn't only hear about one until about an hour ago, so I will check them out and try to give you a better answer.

Owen Macri

[jaden10]

I will be honest, It IS somewhat strange being brought up believing that there are only 9 planets, and honestly (and I know I posted this) there have been SO MANY so called "planet sightings" that it is hard to discern the truth from it, yes I also agree that some will call it a planet, some will call it a KBO and some may just call it a huge chunk of ice. Either way you look at it, it is another small (in galactic terms) object, is it a planet? Who the hell knows, the truth is we won't know until we get a probe out there to check it out, and at the state of technology if they were to send one out now, it will be 20 years (or so) until it gets out there, UNLESS they use ION drives to get it there and then it will be about 9 years. But in any case, I find it important.