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Neil deGrasse Tyson on the Pluto Files
Posted on: October 7, 2009 - 5:16am
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Neil deGrasse Tyson on the Pluto Files
Just in case anyone hasn't seen this. It's very entertaining. Thought I'd stick it here rather than in science. A mod can correct me if they feel it's better suited there.
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OK, as an American, I have to say that Pluto is not my favorite planet. Of all the couple of hundred known planets, it is to the Earth that I feel the greatest attraction. [/rimshot]
(hey, someone was going to do that eventually, might as well get it out of the way early)
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OK, I watched the whole thing (actually, I bailed at the question and answer session as the first two were just woo woo crap). In any case, while I want Pluto to still be a planet on an emotional level, now that I have heard his take on the matter, I see where he is going much better than I did from the stories that came out a few years ago. Having stuck through it, apparently, what the IAU really did was to complicate the definition of a planet by creating subcategories.
Further, what he is really suggesting is that we don't even worry all that much about what a planet is. The current definition is based on orbital characteristics but as we discover more exo-planets, we already know that there are stranger things out there than we had suspected. Rather than deal with changing definitions, he is pretty much saying that we should call stuff stuff and worry about what properties there are to study.
I suppose that I can live with that. However, IU still think that the IAU should have accepted Xena and Gabrielle as names. We need more lesbian planets.
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