Wikijunior talk:Solar System/Pluto

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[edit] Early comments

Sources that I used:

-- Bobdoe 18:46, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)


The images of Pluto/Charon are notably lame. Can we find an artist's conception of the system? -- Netoholic 18:18, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)


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[edit] Headline text

hellobig ==

Lame according to what standards? Some might find images of the real thing more interesting. That image allowed the size of Pluto and Charon to be determined more precisely. We could always add an artist's conception to the page under the other image and label it as such.--StarryTG 11:46, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
In all honesty, I just went and found the first decent NASA image I could find. If someone wants to find a better one, more power to them. -- Bobdoe (Silence) 22:43, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Source for reference: [3] Kaldari 21:32, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Is Pluto a Planet? NPOV Questions here

I'm concerned about the neutral point-of-view aspect here by even having the discussion of wheither Pluto should be considered a major planet (grouped with the other big eight) or considered a minor planet...essentially an asteroid.

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has "ruled" on this issue and simply said that Pluto will remain a planet.

I guess that I'm arguing that this whole question is a pandora's box of problems, and it might be better to simply steer clear by removing this discussion altogether. Remember, this is a kids book, and coverage of the controversy is not necessary. If we stick to known facts and don't go onto the fringe of leading theories or arguements that cause flame wars in astronomy chat circles, we will be much safer here.

I would suggest that the whole topic of what does it mean to be a planet, a moon, asteroid, etc. could be one of the "other articles" that discuss general issues regarding the solar system, especially if you want to group Pluto with other Kuiper Belt objects.

From my (non-neutral) POV, I think Pluto should remain called a planet for many reasons, including those mentioned in the main Wikipedia article about Pluto. Also, by even raising this issue it seems as though this Wikibook is making a political statement about the status of Pluto. If we question its status as a planet, why are we even writing a module about it? Again, avoid, avoid, avoid.

Rob Horning 12:09, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I pretty much agree. It's one of those legacy decisions that doesn't always make sense in hindsight. But if you ask the person on the street "what is the furthest planet from the Sun", they will usually answer Pluto (or else they have no clue.) — RJHall 19:37, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Here's a news story saying that astronomers are going to meet this week to decide whether Pluto is a planet: http://today.reuters.com/news/ArticleNews.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-08-13T165540Z_01_L10356763_RTRUKOC_0_US-SCIENCE-PLUTO.xml --Gray Porpoise 18:22, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

With a large number of planets being discovered now outside of our Solar System, not to mention some esoteric object that are now being found that are not quite stars but more Jupiter sized objects that are independent of stars (they have recently been observed, so this isn't theoretical anymore), the whole definition of planets is certainly coming to a major front now. Personally, I prefer the classification schema that relies on physical characteristics such as the presence or absence of an atmosphere, spherical nature of the object due to gravity, and other similar physcial features that can be measured in order to define a planet. That it might make Titan a planet as well as the Earth's moon, Ceres, and Vesta, but demote Phobos and Deimos from even being called moons to merely captured asteroids is certainly something to consider. Even with these more scientifically derived definitions of planets, Pluto is right on the edge of consideration. --Rob Horning 07:25, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

They've ruled, and decided that Pluto, Xena/Persephone/2003 UB313, and Ceres are "Dwarf planets". I noticed that someone has updated Pluto to suit, and I've added a bit to the tenth planet section. Can anyone recall the date of the decision? Phil Culmer

[edit] Charon

The statement that Some astronomers believe that Pluto and its moon Charon are actually a "double planet", because Charon does not orbit around Pluto is not quite accurate. Perhaps the author meant to indicate that the center of mass of the Pluto-Charon system does not lie within Pluto? I'm not certain. But the current statement is sure to be confusing. — 130.76.32.145 19:33, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Discovery

"was accidentally discovered..." Sources for this? According to Google (http://www.nasa.gov/worldbook/pluto_worldbook.html), it was not accidentally discovered, in fact, Clyde Tombaugh was looking for the planet.

In 1929, Clyde W. Tombaugh, an assistant at the Lowell Observatory, used predictions made by Lowell and other astronomers and photographed the sky with a more powerful, wide-angle telescope. In 1930, Tombaugh found Pluto's image on three photographs.

Somewhere I read that he used a projector that switched between two photos of the sky rapidly and looked for objects that moved (since a planet would move over time)...I can't find a source for this, so it may be completely bogus...but it's been a long time, I probably don't remember correctly. 208.51.52.23 22:41, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

I remeber reading / hearing that somewhere too. --Bjwebb 12:20, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
The story that I seem to recall about the whole thing is that Perceval Lowell did some calculations on the outer planets that suggested some other planetary bodies might be found further from the Sun than Neptune. Just as Neptune was discovered using this method (doing some massive 3-body calculations and other heavy math... without computers mind you) Lowell then suggested a region of the sky to being a search for the "ninth planet". Clyde Tombaugh then started to search that region of the sky and "discovered" Pluto.

Years later more modern astronomers using the original base data that Lowell had for doing the original calculations were then fed into a computer for more precise and accurate calculations, and in particular based on the now known mass of Pluto there doesn't seem to be any basis for the prediction of the location of Pluto. That is why it was called a "chance" discovery, even though it was based originally on a scientific hypothesis. With the orbit of Pluto being so far out of the plane of the ecliptic, it seems even more remote that Pluto would have ever been discovered except by a chance discovery.

One thing though to refute all this speculation is the fact that the apparent magnitude of Pluto was just brighter than the minimum capabilities of the telescopes that Tombaugh was using for the Pluto discovery, and that Tombaugh was a very through researcher who "flipped" through hundreds of sky survey photo plates before he finally found a set that seemed to indicate "movement", which in fact was Pluto. While perhaps not specifically looking for a planet, other astronomical objects including comets and asteroids could have been discovered and indeed were discovered using similiar methods. This gives incredible credit to the capabilities of Tombaugh and his skill in the use of telescopes. It has been said that many of the Kuiper Belt objects would have likely been discovered by Tombaugh except for the fact that his telescope just didn't distinguish objects that are that dim as seen from the Earth. --Rob Horning 21:36, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Further note: See http://www.planetary.org/pluto_75/plutodiscovery1_180205.html for more details about the discovery, including pictures of the telescope that Tombaugh used and the actual photographs used for the discovery of Pluto. --Rob Horning 22:32, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] 10th Planet

In the tenth planet it says the object is "thought to be bigger than Pluto" but also "70% the size of Pluto". Something is wrong! --Bjwebb 15:11, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

So I went to Google, typed "ub313 site:nasa.gov", and hit return. Then I fixed the paragraph, and put in my references (news releases). If you are reading this book, PLEASE HELP. User:Danny has asked us to finish it up quickly. Fact checking is DEFINITELY one of the things we need done. Please See the page for more on how to help. --SV Resolution 17:05, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Missing section!

pluto is missing its Who discovered it? section. Rachel 20:24, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Who is it named after.?

Can I hack the mythology section down? I think it's too wordy. This is about planets not mythology.--Gbleem 19:04, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Strangely, "hacking the sections down" is not on the proofreading plan, simply because I did not know where to put it in the proofreading plan, unless it belonged under "reorganization", which is not a very well-defined topic. Perhaps it would be considerate to discuss it with Shanel, since she has done all the proofreading work so far on this module. I am sure there is a way to improve the section, which seems to be much heavier on Proserpina than on Pluto.
It may actually be that all of these "who is it named after" sections ought to be so short they all belong in the cool facts boxes.
--SV Resolution 19:24, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Volume and km 2

Doesn't go together. I figured that out, when translating his wikijunior into german. de:Benutzer:ThePacker

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