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Mercury, Venus, ..., 2003UB313?
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Mark Nguyen: [QB] People have been contesting Pluto AS a planet ever sicne they found it 75 years ago. Unlike the four gas giants and four rocky inner worlds, Pluto, Sedna, Quaoar and these two new worlds are composed mostly of stellar leftovers, mostly ice, are not geologically active, and occupy noncircular orbits. Back when Pluto was discovered, there wasn't any real way to classify planets in the first place except size; now, most scientists are thinking that planets should be classified more on what they're made of rather than size. Some once said that since it was large enough to have a moon, it ought to be a planet; but since then we've discovered irregular-shaped asteroids with "moonlets" of their own too. Then there's stuff like the moons of the gas giants (Titan, Io, Europa, Tethys...), many of which are larger and more geologically active than Pluto and its bretheren, and in many respects are closer to the rocky inner planets than them. And let'snot forget the asteroids in the belt, some of which are larger than these outer iceballs. The upshot of this is that the traditional definition of "planet" needs to be looked at. There are going to be dozens or HUNDREDS of bodies the size of Pluto or larger, way out there in the Oort cloud. Are they planets? No more than Pluto is. I think that Pluto can't really be called a planet like the eight inner ones. But HOW the classification works out will be in the hands of a bunch of rocket scientists that are way smarter than we are. Mark [/QB][/QUOTE]
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