Our solar system has how many planets again???

catocom said:
To me, the way I understand it, and according to what I was taught in school....
One of the specifications of a planet is that it's basically round/circular.
An asteroid usually isn't round I don't think.:confused:
Now another rule 'could' apply, that the 'planet' has a standard orbital pattern, but
I think just about everything out there has a pattern.:shrug:
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Pluto's orbit is so eliptical that it's inside Neptune for about a 20 years of it's circuit (250 years). :shrug: It's also inclined seventeen degrees form the ecliptic and it's less than a fifth the size of the moon. It's a big ass comet, not a planet.
 
I was also taught that a true planet had something of a liquid core which allows for its own creation and recreations of landmass and volcanoes and whatnot. If it is stone dead and nas no atmosphere.. its just a friggin piece of interstellar charcoal to me.
 
chcr said:
Pluto's orbit is so eliptical that it's inside Neptune for about a 20 years of it's circuit (250 years). :shrug: It's also inclined seventeen degrees form the ecliptic and it's less than a fifth the size of the moon. It's a big ass comet, not a planet.
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Yeah, jogging my memory, it does seem like I recall Pluto was in question, even
back then. (when I was in the 6th grade)
So I'll give ya that one.:nerd:
 
Yup. It was technically the eighth planet from '79 through most of '99. It's back out beyond Neptune now.
 
unclehobart said:
I was also taught that a true planet had something of a liquid core which allows for its own creation and recreations of landmass and volcanoes and whatnot. If it is stone dead and nas no atmosphere.. its just a friggin piece of interstellar charcoal to me.
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Well that would leave out Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune as they are gas planets.








yeah,yeah ,I know I said Uranus was Gaseous.
 
Down in the core it is still soild(ish), is active, and is constantly reforming itself. It doesn't have to be hot iron like ours.

http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/galileo/jupiter/core.html

Jupiter's atmosphere, under the pressure of the atmosphere above, may have formed into a layer of what is called liquid metallic hydrogen. Not exactly an ocean, not exactly atmosphere, this layer of hydrogen would have properties that stretch our understanding of chemistry. Instead of the simple, free-moving behavior of hydrogen in gas form (as we see in our own atmosphere and on the Sun), liquid metallic hydrogen is a strange matrix capable of conducting huge electrical currents. The persistent radio noise and wildly strong magnetic field of Jupiter could both come from this layer of metallic liquid. Some scientists theorize that beneath this layer there is no solid mass at the center of Jupiter, but that the unique temperature and pressure conditions sustain a core whose density is more like liquid or slush.

http://www.solarviews.com/eng/neptune.htm

The first two thirds of Neptune is composed of a mixture of molten rock, water, liquid ammonia and methane. The outer third is a mixture of heated gases comprised of hydrogen, helium, water and methane. Methane gives Neptune its blue cloud color.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/planet_formation_040720.html

Saturn apparently does have a rock core.
 
Kruz said:
we should get rid of Uranus just to stop the bad jokes.
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But..., but... where will the Klingons go?????

*Note: But pun fully intended. You may fire when ready.*
 
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