Illinois Declares Pluto a Planet 512
The Bad Astronomer writes "The legislators in Illinois, always on the lookout for more places to find voters, have passed a resolution declaring Pluto is a planet. I'm not sure what else can be said here, except that — besides overstepping their jurisdiction just a wee bit — they make a couple of scientific howlers in the resolution itself."
Re:Before people say that Illinois is stupid (Score:5, Interesting)
There are now 8 planets in the UNIVERSE because they defined a planet as a body orbiting the sun. The definition sucks so I have no problem if states are defining a planet as something else than a small club of grey men(IAU).
You can say that it's "just a definition", but I don't see where it's the place of a legislature to make scientific definitions to scientists. Legislatures supposedly have better things to do. If they don't, they should recess until that changes.
The IAU definition of a planet is more extensive than that. Also, while I haven't read the IAU text, I doubt their definition means that there are only eight planets in the universe. The only thing I don't like about their definition is that their use of "dwarf" in "dwarf planet" basically means "not a planet", and I think that's inconsistent and improper use of the word.
Re:Woody Allen (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This just in (Score:4, Interesting)
Governments can regulate on social matters (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:There is a good reason for this ... (Score:5, Interesting)
But don't publishers try to sell "new editions" to the districts every six months, or is that only a college problem?
Re:Before people say that Illinois is stupid (Score:5, Interesting)
Neptune will never "suck up" Pluto. They are in a 3:2 mean motion resonance, so although their orbits cross, they will never collide.
http://www.nineplanets.org/plutodyn.html [nineplanets.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_resonance [wikipedia.org]
Re:Politicians wonder... (Score:3, Interesting)
The dumbest thing the people of the U.S. could ever do is elect someone from Illinois to the highest position of power in the world. Congratulations citizens, my recommendation is that you invest in KY Jelly. It will help ease the pain.
Re:Never gonna happen (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, Pluto's orbit is about 16Â farther from the plane than Earth's. Illinois' latitude is about 37Â, and Earth's axial tilt is about 23.5Â. So, we can have a minimum of 13.5Â of Illinois' "overhead" to the earth's plane, and a maximum of 60.5Â. So the orbit of Pluto is indeed overhead Illinois many times in the american summer. The odds that Pluto itself is in the spot are astronomically (literally) low.
PS: Fuck slashdot and it's lack of unicode support. And while we're at it, inline TeX would be nice to.
Re:Before people say that Illinois is stupid (Score:2, Interesting)
There are now 8 planets in the UNIVERSE because they defined a planet as a body orbiting the sun. The definition sucks so I have no problem if states are defining a planet as something else than a small club of grey men(IAU).
This statement is incorrect. The resolution in 2006 solely applied to bodies in the Solar system. Extrasolar bodies' planetary status were sorted out back in 2003:
1. Objects with true masses below the limiting mass for thermonuclear fusion of deuterium (currently calculated to be 13 Jupiter masses for objects of solar metallicity) that orbit stars or stellar remnants are "planets" (no matter how they formed). The minimum mass required for an extrasolar object to be considered a planet should be the same as that used in our Solar System.
2. Substellar objects with true masses above the limiting mass for thermonuclear fusion of deuterium are "brown dwarfs", no matter how they formed nor where they are located.
3. Free-floating objects in young star clusters with masses below the limiting mass for thermonuclear fusion of deuterium are not "planets", but are "sub-brown dwarfs" (or whatever name is most appropriate).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definition_of_planet#Extrasolar_planets_and_brown_dwarfs [wikipedia.org]
Re:Too right! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Before people say that Illinois is stupid (Score:2, Interesting)
Neptune will never "suck up" Pluto. They are in a 3:2 mean motion resonance, so although their orbits cross, they will never collide.
Doesn't that mean that Neptune isn't a planet, because it will never be able to "clear up other objects in its orbit"?
Re:Too right! (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a resolution, not a law... (Score:3, Interesting)
The actual resolution is:
So, all this really says is that 1) the Illinois State Senate would like to see Pluto reestablished, in name, as a planet, and 2) that March 13, 2009 is declared "Pluto Day". There's nothing here about requiring the science books to be changed in Illinois, nothing about legislating the value of Pi, nothing important. Did anyone bother to go through the other resolutions that the 96th general assembly pass? Are they meddling in peoples' ages by passing a resolution that citizens over the age of 49 should be, in their opinion, considered wise and be treated with respect?
Here's why this is important. If this silly overreaction to unimportant issues continues, when it is finally important, your voices are ignored because you all sound like a bunch of whining losers who don't understand the difference between a law and a resolution so your opinion is unimportant.
Re:Pff this is ridiculous (Score:3, Interesting)
Not to mention that the legislature still hasn't passed a special elections law, even though Blagojevich was arrested almost three fucking months ago.
Hell, they could pass a law declaring Roland Burris's appointment/senate seat purchase temporary and calling for a special election to replace his corrupt senate seat purchasing ass.
Or they could spend their time trying to fix the state budget.
But they have to waste their time on stupid shit like this.
Fuck.