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1. Minimum 150 Word Respond. Topic: What’s a planet

Let me start off by saying I loved reading Neil deGrasse Tyson’s article. I had the pleasure of seeing him speak in mid-October here in Durham, and it was one of the highlights of my life. After watching the video this week and reading the material, I am still a bit confused as to why Pluto was demoted to a Dwarf planet. In the Bad Astronomy blog, Mr. Plait states that if the reasoning for demoting Pluto stands then in a billion years give or take a few, Earth will be in the same situation as Pluto, because the Moon will be far away and the Earth-Moon center-of-mass will be outside the Earth. So, even though it will not be in our lifetime, eventually Earth will also be declassified as a planet.

I still have a difficult time coming to terms with Pluto not being a planet, as it has been since I started school. I still think that the IAU should have adopted the term “classic Planets” for those planets that are still considered planets, and adopted another term for the dwarf planets, like Pluto.

In the big scheme of things, my interest in astronomy was not affected by the demoting of Pluto, if anything it renewed my interest into learning the what and why of things. When I ask friends about the demotion it never affected anyone that I know in any way negatively. One of my friends just joked that it proved how uninformed we have all been. He further stated that all our education was lie (a joke of course).

-STEPHANIE

2. Minimum 150 Word Respond. Topic: What’s a planet

I, for one, am glad they kicked Pluto out of the planet rankings…He had it coming!  I honestly didn’t know this was such a big deal or controversy in the Astronomy world, but I do get it that you are discounting what one scientist said.  However, once they discovered there was tons of little guys out in the Kuiper Belt that were similar to Pluto they should of demoted him as fast as possible!  As the posting said “What we call the object doesn’t change what it is or where it is” we are just helping keep the universe a little more organized and if that means that we need more classifications for things then so be it.

 

I don’t believe that it is a great use of any scientist’s time to argue about the if the size of an object orbiting the Sun is considered a Planet or Dwarf Planet, it is an inanimate object.  I do believe that this is a great conversation for the public to talk about because it leads to people learning things!  I’m going to use an example - It is exactly like a store putting on a sale for an in demand product to get people to come into their store because they might buy other things.  If you get people talking about space you might spark a few brains and some future scientists can be born.  I don’t think it ether hurts or helps the effort to encourage interests in astronomy.  I don’t think anyone is going to say “Well, I wanted to be an astronaut, but since there is only 8 planet’s now I don’t feel like it’s worth it.” As I said the most important thing this re-classification did was to get people talking about space when the news dropped. 

Cheers,

-DONNIE