Pluto Now Called a Plutoid.

Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer
SPACE.com
Wed Jun 11, 11:49 AM ET

The International Astronomical Union has decided on the term "plutoid" as a name for dwarf planets like Pluto.

Sidestepping concerns of many astronomers worldwide, the IAU's decision, at a meeting of its Executive Committee in Oslo, comes almost two years after it stripped Pluto of its planethood and introduced the term "dwarf planets" for Pluto and other small round objects that often travel highly elliptical paths around the sun in the far reaches of the solar system.

The name plutoid was proposed by the members of the IAU Committee on Small Body Nomenclature (CSBN), accepted by the Board of Division III and by the IAU Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature (WGPSN), and approved by the IAU Executive Committee at its recent meeting in Oslo, according to a statement released today.

Here's the official new definition:

"Plutoids are celestial bodies in orbit around the sun at a distance greater than that of Neptune that have sufficient mass for their self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that they assume a hydrostatic equilibrium (near-spherical) shape, and that have not cleared the neighborhood around their orbit."

In short: small round things beyond Neptune that orbit the sun and have lots of rocky neighbors.

The two known and named plutoids are Pluto and Eris, the IAU stated. The organization expects more plutoids will be found.

Controversy continues.

Already the IAU recognizes it is adding to an ongoing controversy.

The IAU has been responsible for naming planetary bodies and their satellites since the early 1900s. Its decision in 2006 to demote Pluto was highly controversial, with some astronomers saying simply that they would not heed it and questioning the IAU's validity as a governing body.

"The IAU is a democratic organization, thus open to comments and criticism of any kind," IAU General Secretary Karel A. van der Hucht told SPACE.com by email today. "Given the history of the issue, we will probably never reach a complete consensus."

It remains to be seen whether astronomers will use the new term.

"My guess is that no one is going to much use this term, though perhaps I'm wrong," said Caltech astronomer Mike Brown, who has led the discovery of several objects in the outer solar system, including Eris. "But I don't think that this will be because it is controversial, just not particularly necessary."

Brown was unaware of the new definition until the IAU announced it today.

"Back when the term 'pluton' was nixed they said they would come up with another one," Brown said. "So I guess they finally did."

More debate coming.

The dwarf planet Ceres is not a plutoid as it is located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, according to the IAU. Current scientific knowledge lends credence to the belief that Ceres is the only object of its kind, the IAU stated. Therefore, a separate category of Ceres-like dwarf planets will not be proposed at this time, the reasoning goes.

A meeting, planned earlier this year for Aug. 14-16 at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, aims to bring astronomers of varying viewpoints together to discuss the controversy. "No votes will be taken at this conference to put specific objects in or out of the family of planets," APL's Dr. Hal Weaver, a conference organizer, said in a statement in May. "But we will have advocates of the IAU definition and proponents of alternative definitions presenting their cases."

The term plutoid joins a host of other odd words -- plutinos, centaurs, cubewanos and EKOs -- that astronomers use to define objects in the outer solar system.

MY QUESTION IS, WILL HUMANOIDS EVER LAND ON PLUTOIDS? (())

This post has been edited by photojack on Jun 12 2008, 03:14 AM

There can't be anyone except a handful of astronomers who give a damn, is there?

Pluto is not a dwarf planet

Pluto is a moon of Neptune

No. You're an idiot.

Plutoid group was interstellar small planetary mass objects captured by the Sun!!!

Proof is chaotic orbits of the objects.

Each of them want moving away from the Sun in the galaxy but.........

This post has been edited by K. Margiani on Jun 13 2008, 05:01 AM

Proof Pluto is a moon of Neptune

(1) its orbit passes inside Neptune's orbit

(2) it has the same quantum number as Neptune

(3) it is small and dense, such is the state of moons in general.
Charion is also a moon of Neptune.... most likely it is the reason why Pluto's orbit is so perturbed

I'd imagine that all the residents of the Oort Cloud are the result of some of the lowest energy and slowest accretion during solar system formation (post-Sol-1's nova). Composed in the majority by all of the lighter elements; there'll be little if any metallic elements to be found should we ever get a chance to taste one. When the Pluto Express gets there I'm betting they'll find Pluto surrounded by hundreds of 1km sized chunks in orbit.

Oort Cloud is result of different catastrophes within the galaxy and gathered by the Sun. Oort Cloud formed by debris of solar and interstellar planetary mass objects. Maybe few of them (small irregular asteroid-moon) orbiting Pluto still.

Unacceptable wrong accretion theory. The debris can create different craters only.

The epoch of wrong accretion theory is over. Now is biginning epoch of the cosmogeological theory.

I have huge proof... http://www.cosmogeology.ge/chapter-28.htm

None scientist ever seen something like this truth.

Truth is victorious!

This post has been edited by K. Margiani on Jun 13 2008, 09:10 AM

Thanks for the link K. Margiani

The Oort cloud is not made up of cohesive rocky material... it is composed of dust bound together with frozen CO2 and frozen H2O2

The "particles" are diamagnetic and occasionally are projected into or out of the Solar System... creating "H2O2 comets"

Unfortunately, Pluto IS A MOON of Neptune, no matter what y'all claim.

There is PROOF for this realisation... .....your (established) conjecture can not be counted as evidence..... and is purely speculation.

We’ve proved that, there are a lot of interstellar planetary mass objects within the galaxy plane. Of course, each of them would be dangerous visitor through of any star planetary system. Giant interstellar planetary mass objects created catastrophes in the solar system or the Sun did not capture that. Sun could capture only small visitors. Plutoid group is the PROOF.
When one of the captured objects orbiting near the planet it does not mean… ever was its moon.

This post has been edited by K. Margiani on Jun 13 2008, 01:53 PM

G'day


Astronomers Argue Pluto is a Planet
By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer
posted: 12 June 2008
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/0806...uto-planet.html

Pluto was small interstellar planetary mass object captured by the Sun as well as plutoid group. That is the TRUTH

K. Margiani

No, that is your OPINION. The Oort cloud is simply the outer fringes of our solar system and formed and is composed of the same materials.

Zarkov

Unfortunately, you are a raving Loony, no matter what you claim. PLUTO DOES NOT ORBIT NEPTUNE, therefore it CANNOT be a moon of NEPTUNE.

Words do have meanings, a MOON is a body that orbits another body(the smaller one is the moon), not the sun. Pluto orbits the sun.

Grumpy

just as the Earth's Moon orbits the Sun

LOL


you are just spurting dribble

People, Pluto is on a completely different orbital plane from the gas giants and inner planets.

Now this alone should not exclude it from being a planet.


I would argue that the condition Pluto fails in, the condition that said that a "planet" must clear its own orbit of debris, seems to fail for several of the gas giants as well. Hell, it actually fails for all of the planets, because there are millions of comets and asteroids and other "near Earth Objects" that are constantly crossing one another's orbits.



At any rate, these blokes ought to have at least waited until New Horizons flyby of Pluto before changing its planetary status in the first place. Nobody has ever seen anything of pluto and charon other than a pair of blurry specks in even the most powerful telescopes. So it needs to be examined closely by a probe, instead of all this uninformed nonsense that passes for science these days.