Sunday, August 27, 2006
pLuTo
Come wander with me, she said,
Into regions yet untrod;
And read what is still unread
In the manuscripts of God.
Pluto - the planet, born in 1930 but living a short live and pass away last week precisely on August 24, 2006. It remains the only planet that has not been visited by a spacecraft.
Venetia Burney, 11 years old - the girl who named Pluto from Oxford, England
Pluto's diameter is about 18% of EARTH
Pluto's official status as a planet has always been a subject of controversy since its discovery and ratification by the IAU as a planet in 1930.
Reclassification as dwarf planet
Astronomers are reluctant to call an object a planet for the sake of simplicity and tradion.
3 main criteria/conditions for an object to be called a planet, according to the IAU resolution in 2006
- the object must be in orbit around a star, but not be star itself
- the object must be massive enough to be a sphere by its own gravitational force
- it must have cleared the neighborhood around its orbit
Pluto fails to meet these conditions (primarily condition 3) but will act as a prototype for a yet to be named category of Trans-Neptunian objects
sMurFy at ... [ 8:59 PM ]
================================================================
================================================================
