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posted by martyb on Thursday August 02 2018, @06:10PM   Printer-friendly
from the Number-Nine,-Number-Nine,-Number-Nine... dept.

Planet Nine: 'Insensitive' Term Riles Scientists

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) famously reclassified Pluto as a "dwarf planet" in 2006. That decision remains highly controversial today, as made clear by the new note, which appeared in the July 29 issue of the Planetary Exploration Newsletter.

The note:

ON THE INSENSITIVE USE OF THE TERM "PLANET 9" FOR OBJECTS BEYOND PLUTO

We the undersigned wish to remind our colleagues that the IAU planet definition adopted in 2006 has been controversial and is far from universally accepted. Given this, and given the incredible accomplishment of the discovery of Pluto, the harbinger of the solar system's third zone — the Kuiper Belt — by planetary astronomer Clyde W. Tombaugh in 1930, we the undersigned believe the use of the term 'Planet 9' for objects beyond Pluto is insensitive to Professor Tombaugh's legacy.

We further believe the use of this term should be discontinued in favor of culturally and taxonomically neutral terms for such planets, such as Planet X, Planet Next, or Giant Planet Five.

35 researchers signed the note, including Alan Stern, principal investigator of the New Horizons mission.

Of more interest may be this proposal concerning future exploration of Uranus and Neptune:

Outer Solar System Exploration: A Compelling and Unified Dual Mission Decadal Strategy for Exploring Uranus, Neptune, Triton, Dwarf Planets, and Small KBOs and Centaurs

Related: Uranus and Neptune Are Potential Targets for 2030s Missions
Another Trans-Neptunian Object With a High Orbital Inclination Points to Planet Nine
CU Boulder Researchers Say Collective Gravity, Not Planet Nine, Explains Orbits of Detached Objects
Planet Nine Search Turns Up 10 More Moons of Jupiter


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  • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday August 02 2018, @08:00PM (2 children)

    by urza9814 (3954) on Thursday August 02 2018, @08:00PM (#716418) Journal

    "Planet X" refers to a number of past hypothesized planets, and you could treat the "X" as an integer variable.

    That's even worse. They won't call it "Planet 9", despite the fact that it would, if discovered, be the ninth known planet in our solar system...but they have no problem with it being "Planet 10" with no known 9th?

    If they find another planet, they can change the numbers. It's not like we haven't done that before. "Planet 9" isn't a permanent name for the thing, it's an array index that is allocated but awaiting contents.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 03 2018, @12:25AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 03 2018, @12:25AM (#716507)

    It’s like the 12th Doctor. We found out there was one in between 8 and 9, but didn’t bother upping the index and changed the index system into a dict and called the extra Doctor the ‘war’ Doctor. So now we get to say that the ‘14th’ Doctor can be referenced as the ‘13th’.

  • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday August 03 2018, @12:20PM

    by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Friday August 03 2018, @12:20PM (#716647) Homepage
    I think they should name the planets after elements, and the next planet should be named after element 95 - so America it is.
    --
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