NASA Discovers Fourth Moon Around Pluto:
Astronomers have discovered a fourth moon orbiting Pluto. The tiny new satellite, temporarily designated “P4″, has an estimated diameter of 8 to 21 miles.
P4 was first seen in a photo taken with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 on June 28…
Did Earth already cash in or just enter a cheat-code?
Posted by Karan on August 2nd, 2011.
Very funny. Poor Pluto
Posted by Sarah on August 4th, 2011.
Nerd-rock musician Jonathan Coulton wrote a song called “I’m Your Moon” which was written as a love song from Charon to Pluto after Pluto had been downgraded…it’s surprisingly sweet! http://www.jonathancoulton.com/music/thingaweek/ImYourMoon.mp3
Posted by SMurphy on August 4th, 2011.
What is that “upgrade” panel from?
Posted by ZonedRetard on August 5th, 2011.
[...] Not even the discovery of a fourth moon around Pluto can get it back in the big kids’ club. (Defective Yeti) [...]
Posted by Here’s some stuff I enjoyed this week on August 5th, 2011.
I thought the shape of the orbit also determined whether it was a planet or dwarf-planet. I think Pluto’s orbit was not in the same plane as the orbit of the eight planets. I don’t remember number of moons, or even possession of moons, qualified as a quality of a planet. According to Wikipedia, Haumea, a dwarf-planet, has a couple of moons.
Posted by Jamie on August 15th, 2011.
It was solely based on size, from what I heard. It makes sense, too. There are much bigger astronomical objects that we don’t call planets, so it was either upgrade those or downgrade Pluto.
Posted by Fred on August 25th, 2011.
Didn’t we kick Pluto out from our club?
Posted by SP on September 16th, 2011.
I was under the impression that the main reason Pluto was downgraded was because a planet has to sweep up sufficient debris in its orbit, and because Pluto passes through the Kuiper belt, it clearly hasn’t done that.
Posted by Mike on September 23rd, 2011.
A planet is determined by where the axis of rotation between it and its moon is located. If the axis is located inside the planet, then it is indeed a planet. The axis of rotation between Pluto and Charon is located in space, which means the two bodies rotate around each other.
Posted by theONE on September 23rd, 2011.
A planet has nothing to do with its moon.
A planet in our solar system must orbit the Sun (not some other body), have sufficient mass to achieve hydrostatic equilibrium (be roughly spherical), and have cleared the neighborhood around its orbit. By that, they mean that any debris in the objects orbit must be either accreted, pushed out of that orbit, or brought into an orbit around the object or around the Lagrangian points of the objects orbit and the Sun.
Posted by Fake Al Gore on September 23rd, 2011.
so how is Pluto still not a planet
Posted by Rob on September 28th, 2011.
[...] Defective Yeti. Share this:TwitterFacebook astronomy ← Previous post @dnghub db at mail dot ubc dot [...]
Posted by Pluto: power up? « on October 2nd, 2011.
the cool thing is that in only four short years and with a bit more luck, we get pictures from a Pluto flyby
Also, Pluto Today, for all your on-the-spot Plutonian reporting, And more!
Posted by joel hanes on October 28th, 2011.