...Name: Raj Patel Class: 12.3 Title: Pluto-: Planet or Not? Pluto-: Planet or Not? Pluto is one of the nine planets of our solar system. Some people argue whether it is worthy of having its title as a planet. In 1930 Clyde W. Tombaugh at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona discovered the planet Pluto. After serving 76 long years as the ninth planet in our solar system, Pluto was controversially demoted to a dwarf planet in 2006.This has raised many debates on whether Pluto was categorized unfairly or not. Astronomers from both sides of the debate have legitimate arguments making it tough to decide whether Pluto should be classified as a planet or a dwarf planet. Pluto’s title as a planet was questioned when Mike Brown, Professor of Planetary Astronomy at the California Institute of Technology discovered an object in 2005 that was further out than the orbit of Pluto. The object was also 25% more massive than Pluto. This object was later named Eris. It is located along with Pluto in the Kuiper Belt. There are plenty of other mysterious objects located in the Kuiper Belt that are more or less the same size as Pluto and Eris. This troubled the International Astronomical Union because this meant that there are tens to hundreds of objects that could very soon be known as planets. There are approximately more than 1,000 objects composed of the same icy mixture located in the Kuiper Belt. Many astronomers, scientists, and the International Astronomical Union...
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...Should Pluto be a Planet? In 1930 Clyde W. Tombaugh at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona discovered the planet Pluto. After serving 76 long years as the ninth planet in our solar system, Pluto was controversially demoted to a dwarf planet in 2006. This has raised many debates on whether Pluto was categorized unfairly or not. Astronomers from both sides of the debate have legitimite arguments making it tough to decide whether Pluto should be classified as a planet or a dwarf planet. Pluto’s title as a planet was questioned when Mike Brown, Professor of Planetary Astronomy at the California Institute of Technology discovered an object in 2005 that was further out than the orbit of Pluto. The object was also 25% more massive than Pluto. This object was later named Eris. It is located along with Pluto in the Kuiper Belt. There are plenty of other mysterious objects located in the Kuiper Belt that are more or less the same size as Pluto and Eris. This troubled the International Astronomical Union because this meant that there are tens to hundreds of objects that could very soon be known as planets. There are approximately more than 1,000 objects composed of the same icy mixture located in the Kuiper Belt. Many astronomers, scientists, and the International Astronomical Union felt uncomfortable with the fact that there are hundreds of objects in our solar system that have a strong possibility of becoming planets. To avoid the feeling of skepticism the International...
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...In the lecture “The Pluto Files” leads by Tom Hothem, he shows a video that demonstrate how Neil DeGrasse Tyson, an astronomer scientist and director of Hayden Planetarium, goes around the United States to figure out the truth about Pluto. In the film, “The Pluto Files”, he talks about how he is criticized for putting Pluto far away from the other nine planets and for making Pluto’s image tiny. Neil believes that Pluto is not a planet because he notices how Pluto is crossing Neptune’s orbit for 20 years when it is impossible for any planet to do so. From there, Neil travels to Clyde Tombaugh’s hometown, New Mexico, to see the reasons that people are outrage for Neil’s belief that Pluto is not a planet. As Neil interview people in Mexico,...
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...our solar system is whether Pluto should be classified as a planet. In 2006, Pluto was relegated from planet to dwarf planet. After a few years, the debate appeared to be settled. However, this past week when the New Horizons probe was set out to be the first spacecraft to visit Pluto new questions were raised. According to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), an object is considered a planet when it meets three criteria: it has to orbit the sun, be large enough that the force of its gravity pulls it into a spherical shape, and have "cleared the neighborhood around its orbit." In theory, an object that's large enough will clear its orbit either by collecting other debris with its gravity or by surviving impacts with the debris....
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...explanation will not receive credit. 1. Here is some practice on conversion of units and scientific notation. Show your work – in scientific notation! – for each. a. The US imports about 12 million barrels of petroleum per day (about half of our usage). At the current cost of crude oil of $95 per barrel, how much money are we sending overseas per year per each of the 300 million people in the US to buy oil? b. Estimate how long it would take you to drive to the Sun, which is 1 AU = 1.5x1011 m away. Assume there is a nice highway to drive on, with a speed limit of 70 miles per hour. How many meals would you have to pack if you wanted to drive round-trip? c. The New Horizons spacecraft is headed to Pluto, which is about 35 AU away from Earth. It was launched in January 2006 and is expected to pass Pluto in July 2015. How fast – in meters per second, and in miles per hour – is the average speed of the New Horizons spacecraft on this voyage? 2. You are an adventurous medieval explorer who travels from Madrid to London, which is a distance of 1100 km almost due north. a. You notice that the star Algol, which passes directly overhead (the “zenith”) in Madrid, only gets to within 10 degrees of the zenith (south of zenith) when you are in London. If you are a flat-Earth advocate, you conclude that Algol must be how far away from Earth? (draw a picture!) b. You also notice that Polaris shifts from being 49 degrees north of zenith to 39 degrees from zenith during this journey. Is Polaris the same...
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...6/9/14 6-2 Is Pluto a Planet? Many people think that Pluto should not be considered a planet. There really wasn't a definition of a planet until scientsts started discussing whether or not Pluto should be a planet. The definition scientist came up with for a planet is a body of mass in space that has enough mass to have a sufficent amount of gravity to obtain a round shape, has cleared its neighborhood around its orbit, and orbits around the sun. Using the informtation from my research and information, I think that Pluto should be considered a planet. Pluto should be a planet because it follows all of the guidlines of a planet. One reason that Pluto should be a planet is that it was considered a planet until scientists starting thinking about it a came up with a definition that would classify it as a dwarf planet. There was never a clear definition of a planet until the contreversy about Pluto. Also it orbits the sun, like all of the other planets. Pluto also has enough mass to have a round shape. Although Pluto has not completely cleared its orbit, amost half of the other planets haven't completely cleared their orbit such as Earth, Neptune, and Jupiter, which would classify them as something other than a planet. Since Pluto is similar to other planets, it should be a planet. Therefore, Pluto should be considered a planet because it is round, orbits the sun, is similar to other planets, and the definition of a planet would de-classify other planets as...
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...Kepler. These scientists have all created or in some way helped to discover something new about our solar system. Evolution Through the Solar System Though scientists have been studying the solar systems for years. There are still discoveries made each year. Many of the discoveries have been interesting from the formation and motion of the planets, the early revolution of the planets, and the scientists who discovered what we know today. Formation Scientists have been studying the origin of our solar system for hundreds of years. Some findings are well supported while others are not as well received. The best news is we are not done concluding the formation of our solar system just yet. In 2006, the distant ice-covered body known as Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf and changed the model of our solar system from nine planets to eight. Today a planet is defined as, “A full-fledged planet is an object that orbits the sun and is large enough to have become round due to the force of its gravity. In addition, the planet has to dominate the neighborhood around its orbit” (Mason, 2006). So how did the planets get here? The best theory we have today to answer this question is called the Nebula Hypothesis. Our sun and our planets were formed from a rotating cloud of cosmic gas. This cloud was most likely created from a supernova explosion....
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...Borderline Planet It is no question that the status of Pluto’s status as a planet has stirred up a lot of controversy in the past. A lot of people in these modern times grew up with acknowledging Pluto as the ninth planet. Not too long ago a critical debate was held to finally conclude on what Pluto really is. Nadia Drake, a science journalist from National Geographic provided a neutral view into the debate. Her article In a Planet-or-Not Debate, Some Astronomers Say “Long Live Planet Pluto”, which was published on September 27, 2014, discusses a little bit about what went down at the debate that was held at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center For Astrophysics. She also goes in depth on the decision that discontinued Pluto as a planet in 2006....
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...science fiction movies, spaceships are often shown dodging through large numbers of closely spaced, boulder-size objects. Which of the following real things in our solar system would look most like such science fiction dangers? the rings of Saturn Suppose we discover a new comet on an orbit that brings it closer to the Sun than Mercury every 125 years. What can we conclude? It has been on its current orbit for only a very short time compared to the age of our solar system Which of the following objects are probably not located in the same region of the solar system in which they originally formed? oort cloud comets The discovery of Eris __________. was not surprising, because other Kuiper belt objects approaching the size of Pluto had already been discovered When we see a meteor shower, it means that _________ Earth is crossing the orbit of a comet When you see the bright flash of a meteor, what are you actually seeing? the glow from a pea-size particle and the surrounding air as the particle burns up in our atmosphere Suppose you find a meteorite made almost entirely of metal. According to current science, which of the following statements must be true? Your meteorite is a fragment from the core of a large asteroid that shattered in a collision Why didn't a planet form where the asteroid belt is now located? Gravitational tugs from Jupiter prevented material from collecting together to form a planet. Suppose there were no solar wind. How would...
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...The definition is flawed, relating to “cleared the neighborhood”. Every 228 years Pluto crosses inside of the orbit of Neptune, so technically speaking, it does not clear its neighborhood. But that also means that Neptune does not clear its own neighborhood. Mars and Jupiter don’t clear their neighborhoods as they “interfere” with the Asteroids, and the Earth actually orbits the Sun with thousands of Asteroids. So the Earth doesn’t clear its own neighborhood either. So if we use the definition set forth by the IAU, Pluto, Neptune, Jupiter, Mars, and the Earth, are NOT planets! Also, why aren’t “Dwarf Planets” known as planets? Dwarf Stars are still stars, and Dwarf Galaxies are still galaxies. These new definitions ONLY apply to objects in OUR Solar System, making the definition even more un-scientific. Along with the definition being both linguistically and scientifically flawed, so was the voting process. Although there are over 10,000 Astronomers in the IAU, only 237 of them voted and approved this definition. Therefore, there was NOT a majority consensus of what a planet is. Hundreds of Astronomers around the world (and this planetarium) have signed petitions to ignore the new definition and still refer to Pluto as the ninth planet in our Solar System. Discovered in 1930, Pluto orbits the Sun, has three moons, has an atmosphere, has weather, and even polar caps. It is not that much different than any of the other planets. It has been known as a planet for...
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...BUYCO, GENEVIEVE P NS2 / 1:30-2:30 01249 / BA: 304 THEORIES OF THE ORIGIN OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM There have been two main views regarding the origin of the planets in our solar system. The first is that another star happened to pass near our sun, and drew off clouds of gases which then formed themselves into planets. This is the planetesimal group of theories. Astronomers are well aware of the fact that stars do not wander around through space, but that is how the theory went.. The other main viewpoint is that a swirling cloud of gas formed itself into our sun, planets, moons, comets, and asteroids. By 1940, all the various encounter or planetesimal theories had pretty much been discarded as hopeless, but, beginning in that decade, under the urging of *von Weizsacker, *Whipple, *Spitzer, *Urey, *Garnow, *Hoyle, *Kuiper, and others, an attempt has been made to bring astronomers back to some variation of the nebular (gas cloud) hypothesis. Their efforts have been surprisingly successful, in spite of the obvious physical principle that gas in outer space (as well as here on earth) never coagulates; it always spreads outward. Let us consider some of the major reasons the various theories of the origin of our solar system are more foolishness than fact. 1-Mercury is the closest planet to the Sun and the eighth largest. Mercury is smaller in diameter than Ganymede and Titan but more massive. 2-Venus is the second planet from the Sun and the sixth largest. Venus' orbit is the...
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...and why a an hour consists of 60 minutes and a day is divided into 24 hours. We can all tell time and we schedule our appointments and dates around time and day all the time. No one ever really stops to look into the history of the origin of time and how it was determined to be divided upon. However, that definition is a narrow one that only applies to planet earth., but what about other planets? One day is the length of time it takes for a planet to complete one single rotation on its axis which is 360°. Since all of the planets rotate at different speeds, the length of a day on each one differs. The definition of a day will explain just how many hours are in a day for Earth, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus , Neptune, Mercury and Pluto. Explanation of the units of an hour and day There is documented evidence of the use of sundials that were used by Egyptians as early as 1500 B.C.. Sundials were stakes that were strategically placed in the ground so that they can indicate the time by the length and direction of the resulting shadow. A duodecimal system was used to divide the time period between sunrise and sunset into 12 parts. The number 12 was significant because it is the number of lunar cycles in a year. The night sky was divided by 12 and a circle into 360 degrees. They divided the day and night each into 12 hours. The hour was split into 60 minutes and a minute into 60 seconds. The Egyptians divided the clock into 12 hours of daytime and 12 hours of night-time...
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...ASA's New Horizons spacecraft flew by Pluto to capture never-before-seen images at close range. The unmanned vehicle took nearly a decade to travel 3 billion miles from Earth to the dwarf planet. The New Horizons is a spacecraft that its purpose was to get to pluto and jupiter./2015 The Cassini spacecraft is about to get an icy shower as it orbits Saturn. Cassini will storm through a jet of water vapor and frozen particles erupting from the south pole of Enceladus, one of Saturn's many moons. The spacecraft will zoom within 30 miles (50 kilometers) of the pole, providing the best sampling yet of its underground ocean. It will be traveling at 19,000 mph, enough to penetrate the plume. scientist are doing this because there might be life on...
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...Earth-bound vs Space-based Telescopes Why construct and operate telescopes in Earth orbit ? To address this question, contrast the advantages and disadvantages of telescopes on the ground and in space. Keep in mind that the Hubble Space Telescope is NOT the only space telescope. Advantages: • Orbiting telescopes are NOT affected by the image smearing caused by Earth’s atmospheric motions, hence they can produce much “sharper” images The Hubble Telescope records optical images with a resolution as sharp as 0.05 arc seconds. • Space-based telescopes can collect energy from the entire electromagnetic spectrum, not just the portion that passes through our atmosphere. New “windows” on the cosmos are open to our view. • Day and night are not the same in orbit as on the ground, permitting telescopes to observe for much longer times at some locations on the sky. Disadvantages: • Telescopes on the ground can be built with much larger mirrors. Compare the Keck telescope’s 10-meter mirror with Hubble’s 2.4 meter mirror. Placing massive objects in orbit remains an expensive proposition. The largest optical and radio telescopes are still Earth-bound. • Ground-based telescopes don’t move at 5 km/sec, don’t have to carry their own power source and communications gear, and don’t need to worry about orbiting debris crashing into them. These “features” drive up the cost of designing, launching and operating space-based telescopes. • Ground-based telescopes...
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...Revenge of Pluto I usually don’t have the habit of waking up early in the morning. But there was somebody on the verge of breaking my door if I did not wake up and open the door myself. The sun was just rising and I could not help but think, when was the last time I woke up so early. The person who was knocking my door wanted to interview me and with good reason. He was from one of those crazy institutions which believed that aliens exist. I actually never saw anybody getting so excited to see me, not even my parents. The reason for him coming was that my warnings had come true. This very morning some eminent scientists were kidnapped, with no trace whatsoever. What was interesting was the fact that these were the same scientists who had got Pluto stripped of its status as a planet. And I had been warning people that the people of Pluto were unhappy at Earth’s condescending attitude. How did I come to know about this?? I have a ham radio, which turned out to be no ordinary ham radio. I was able to intercept signals from somebody from Jupiter. At first I thought I was being taken for a ride, but later realized that it was no joke. What made me realize that was the fact that I was not able to trace the signals to any location on earth. But what reaffirmed the fact was that the alien told that people of Jupiter have winged blue creatures called Ihit, which on interpreting signals from any person could tell about him. And he was spot on about me – everything about me...
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