Re: NBC my reality is being messed with


"bill1255" <bill1255@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:11eogkemtl25595@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> "Gumboman" <noemail@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote
>>
>> I also wouldn't be surprised if Pluto's planetary status is taken away -
>> maybe even Neptune, based on their orbits if nothing else. Otherwise, we
>> could end up with 'many' planets.
>>
>>
> Could someone please give me the Cliff Notes on what's going on with
> Pluto? The planet, not Mickey's doggie.
>

Until we get to the outer planets the orbits are basically all in one plane
as the planets revolve around the sun. Pluto's orbit is somewhat different
in that it is outside of this plane and also somewhat elliptical (it doesn't
look like a circle from above as it orbits the sun). Some planetary
scientists have argued for quite a while now that Pluto isn't really a
planet in the traditional sense but this argument is countered somewhat
because they have now found at least one moon orbiting Pluto. Neptune is
also debatable as a planet because it also has an irregular orbit but again,
it has moons so it's status is somewhat less challenged than Pluto's.

In the outer regions of the solar system is something known as the Kuiper
Belt. This is an area where a large number of icy bodies orbit the sun. Many
of these are also out of the plane of the solar system. In fact, right
before this 10th planet was announced other scientists announced that they
had found a different body that was slightly smaller than Pluto. Some
scientists had thought for quite a while that there were many thousands of
bodies similar to Pluto in the Kuiper Belt. The debate revolves around
whether these should receive the designation of 'planet', seeing as how many
of them may be larger than Pluto. All of these bodies are very difficult to
detect due to the low levels of light that reflect off their surfaces. Up to
this point scientists had not looked for these objects outside of the plane
of the solar system because they simply didn't have equipment that was good
enough to detect anything. One thing they can do now is detect these systems
when they transit in front of a star that is much further away (a background
star) and whose light parameters are known. As the body transits in front of
the distant object the light from that body will be dimmed. This helps in
determining the size of the transient body since light output is related to
mass. This is the same method that scientists are using to find planets
revolving around other stars. They are also using traditional detection
methods such as telescopes which are able to detect smaller light
reflections as the equipment improves.

Anyway, it's all a little more complicated than that but that's the basic
Cliff Notes version. In essence, there may be a whole lot of Plutos out
there.


JH


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