Damn, there's some crazy mofos there!

Pluto may apparently be demoted from its planet status by the International Astronomical Union because of the discovery of a larger object nicknamed "Xena" (yes, after the Warrior Princess) outside. Pluto is highly irregular as a planet, considering its orbit's eccentricity and that it is actually melting away from the Sun's energy like a comet. It may be classified as a "minor planet" or as one of the more notable representatives of the Kuiper Belt, which lies outside of Neptune but inside some funky thing called the Oort Cloud. There is some historical precedent for demoting planets, as a few prominent asteroids (Ceres, for one) in the asteroid belt were originally classified as planets back in the 1800s before later discoveries showed that they were simply the most notable of asteroids.

Oh yeah, and apparently there were decades-long bitchfests about the naming of the planets Uranus and Neptune, and also about who is credited with the discovery! There also appear to be some mysterious "Neptune Papers" that may alter perceptions of who should be credited with the discovery.

Oh yeah, I also learned that Uranus and Neptune are more accurately referred to as "ice giants" given their composition...
















But I still allege that Uranus is a gas giant!

God I'm a geek.
[Edited 7/22/06 7:32am]

Moonbeam said:

it's taking every morsel of my being not to respond with a cheap joke.

Anx said:

Even cheaper than mine, Babs? Even cheaper than mine?

Anx better respect my Kuiper belt gangsta!

Moonbeam said:

the belt's so big in your kuiper baby
i'll invite my friends for a dance baby
sell those tickets advance baby
an immense geek up in your kuiper baby

hurts so good i got a kuipergasm

(i sure hope you have the new peaches album, or else this will make NO sense )

Didn't realise that both Kuiper and Oort were both Dutch. Not bad for such a small country.

AlfofMelmak said:

what are you talking about? the dutch are responsible for the way most of the world lives these days. they're fucking geniuses or the devil's spawn, i haven't been able to figure that out, yet.

by the way, this thread is far out, man!

sinisterpentatonic said:

I know! Just find it incredible
I'd say geniuses, but most of it lies in the past.

You're not dutch are you sin?

Pluto demoted? Nooooo! It's a teensy planet but a very powerful one.

they should do first things first. They have yet to offically recognize Vulcan as part of our solar system given its proximity to the sun.

Anx said:

I've got the album and I enjoy it!

Anyway, it should be Oortgasm, clearly.

Have you ever read their guidleines on how to write an article?

They give REALLY good advice on style etc.

It'z real interesting- the whole concept of what makez a planet- a planet. And the whole notion of minor planetz. If Pluto has absolutely no land mass whatsoever and it'z just a ball of gas that happenz to have a few moonz is it a planet? Well if it has moonz what else could it be? But then skimming down omg it could be a double planet ...lol i haven't read the article properlyin full yet but that'z fantabulous- thankz for sharin the link!!

You know, while itz obvious what would happen to Earth in this instance, but imagine if the order of our planetz were reversed...how much would each planet change..i mean there is the obvious in temperaturez ofcourse and in Earth's case life would absolutely go kaput unless we had a super duper system on earth which meant if Earth spun off itz own axis we would be able to assume our own kind of global climate control magically...what other kindz of changes would occur? Would mass expand? Would mass explode? Would mass just shrink?

Is this going to lead to the new 'squozen'?

Duede, isn't Wik,ipedia the fucking best? That site is so damn informative on, like, everythign!!!

The planet Xena is actually the planet the ancient Egyptians referred to as Nibiru... it's where the good aliens live, albeit on another dimensional plane.




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[Edited 7/22/06 22:10pm]

GangstaFam said:

Naw, 9s posted on this thread.

Can't believe people still know that word.

well, i can believe it from you ofcourse

mrdespues said:

Wooo.

jerseykrs said:

isn't it maintained by users? i can't always trust wikipedia for that reason.