I think Pluto is a satellite the belong to a Planet somewhere around 50 light yrs from pluto....

Compare to Mars's moon...they look the same (to me)...

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I think Pluto is a satellite the belong to a Planet somewhere around 50 light yrs from pluto....

Compare to Mars's moon...they look the same (to me)...

I think you goofed that one up a little bit!
I say Pluto was a rouge moon that had gotten thrown out of orbit from one of the outer gas giant planets; probably from a collision, Pluto has a moon half its mass and are locked in a lunar orbit always facing each as if a bar was connecting them together. And one light year is 5.9 trillion miles.The next closest sun is 4.3 light years away.



PLUTO

Distance from the sun is 3 Billion 666 million miles


Light from the sun takes approximately
5 hrs. & 30 minutes to reach Pluto

If you traveled at 100 mph, 24 hours
per day it would take 4,185 years

Diameter is 1,440 miles

One year is 248.5 earth years

One day is 6 days 9 earth hours

Temperature is around -380f

The smallest planet, our moon is larger

100 pounds would weigh 6.7 pounds

number of moons ( 1 )

Jerry B)
http://doctorlock.net

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<span style='color:blue'>Jerry

Lets Go &quot;You know we can&quot;</span>

<span style='color:red'>Central Florida Astroguides
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Jerry. Thank you for sharing that information. If you don't mind I would like to add on a little more information as well on Pluto too.
Here you go!

Pluto's Equatorial Diameter is 2,274 kilometers

Mass is 1.3 x 10(22) kilograms

Density is 2.05 grams per cubic centimeter

Atmosperic Composition:
Probably Methane, Nitrogen, and Carbon Monoxide

I hope you are ok with letting me add more information to yours if that is ok. If not, I am truely sorry.

thats wat we are all here for! to share info

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<span style='color:blue'>Jerry

Lets Go &quot;You know we can&quot;</span>

<span style='color:red'>Central Florida Astroguides
orlflstarparty@aol.com</span>

That's ture, they both orbitting each other >< like a binary star....so I might think that the Pluto is a(n) Asteriod that left its home, the Kuiper belt and was capture by Neptune's gravity...j/k

could be!

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<span style='color:blue'>Jerry

Lets Go &quot;You know we can&quot;</span>

<span style='color:red'>Central Florida Astroguides
orlflstarparty@aol.com</span>

Since Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto in 1930, it has been considered a planet. Now it seems people are eager to rewrite history. Pluto, in my estimation, is a planet. Is it small? Sure, but so is Mercury. Is it in a resonant orbit? Yes, but so are a couple of other planets. Is it rotationally locked? Yes, but, again, so is Mercury. If Pluto can't be considered a planet for those reasons, then neither can Mercury. I can even go further. Which two planets, do you suppose, have orbits most tilted to the ecliptic? Which two planets have orbits with the greatest degree of eccentricity. Golly, you're right!

Until we discover otherwise, Pluto is the largest of the Kuiper Belt objects, and is undeniably the closest large Belt object to Earth. If Mercury is a planet, then so is Pluto. I like to think of Pluto as I think of the city where I spent most of my life: small but important. My city's motto is "Gateway to the North", and it provided (and still provides) both a jumping-off point and supplier to deep Arctic destinations. Pluto, should we ever arrive "in person", may well herald itself proudly as "Gateway to the Kuipers," and act as a base for explorers and prospectors of the solar system's true "final frontier."

I do not believe Pluto's status as "planet" is arguable, especially as there is no hard and fast rule sorting planets from non-planets when it comes to issues of size. Besides, with the amazing diverity we have discovered in our solar system, it is a satisfaction to consider the Pluto-Charon system as close a match to an actual binary planet as I anticipate we will ever find this close to home.

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An interesting discussion! I had to find out more about Pluto and I came up with this website in my search:

http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Lau.../7460/news.html

Cheers,
G

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See WITH A GEE, mag12.0 star (#14596801704) in Canis Major @ RA 7h7m55.63s; Dec -17d56m18.64s.

That is a really good site withaGee. I feel like I've just read a Lonely Planet guide to Pluto before a trip. I'm packed got my thermal socks and ready to go. Who wants to light the fuse?

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1·618033988749894848204586834365638117720309179805 76286213544862270526046281890244970720720418939113 74

There's a lot of debate as to whether Pluto deserves it's status as a planet or whether it should be relegated to Kuiper Belt status...

We know Pluto is about 3 and a half billion miles... so how far away is next nearest Kuiper Belt object? Surely if it was a lot further, that would settle it?

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"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe... Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion... I've watched c-beams glitter in the dark, near the Tanhauser Gate... all those moments will be lost, in time... like tears in the rain..."

I think Pluto is a planet. A very strange planet, but one, nonetheless. The arguments put forth with Mercury as a comparison are really very cogent.
Compared to anything we have managed to discover in the rest of the universe, our whole planetary system is unique and strange. So, Pluto fits right in.

The IAU have decided that Pluto is a planet, so officially it is to be counted as one. However I think Pluto is at a distance of 39.5 AU and the Kuiper belt from 30-50 (some say 30 to 100) AU. Pluto is probably an icy/dusty/rocky body and probably not too unlike the traditional KBO's. Officially it's a planet, but personally I would like to say it's a KBO. What if we find a KBO larger than Pluto, would it be considered a planet?

maybe....I will call it the "Sub-Planet".

I nomenate Pluto for duo citizenship, as both a planet, and a Kupier Belt object.
Do we have a second on the motion?
If so discussion around the motion... :P

I guess, technically, it's a KBO then but I think it will always be a planet as far as I'm concerned. Why can't we just make an exception in this case anyway? Why must we re-classify it at all?

I second your motion, Planetwatcher

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"The stars are my home"
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe... Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion... I've watched c-beams glitter in the dark, near the Tanhauser Gate... all those moments will be lost, in time... like tears in the rain..."

The best thing would probably be to try to learn as much about the Kuiper Belt as well as Pluto as possible, and if the differences in both size and composition, for example, are too big, then maybe it's a planet. Either way the discovery of other KBO's seem to have sparked the debate on what a planet really is. Where is the upper and lower limit when it comes to size and mass? Does it have to be over a certain size counted in km? Would it have to be massive enough to have at least a roughly spherical shape? I will follow the guidelines of the IAU when I'm involved in discussions about the planets etc, even if I might point out the other things too... and besides I could be wrong about Pluto being more similar to a KBO than a planet.

We have a motion, and a 2nd. There is discussion around the motion.
Any further dissussion?
If not, all in favor of the motion of Pluto having dual citizenship, say aye.
All opposed, same side, motion passed. But discussion may continue.

Perhaps logic should rule over sentiment in cases like this.

Dave Mitsky

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De gustibus non est disputandum.
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It is not an attempt to "rewrite" history (that's the province of politicians) but is simply the consideration of data that wasn't available seventy years ago. That's the way science works.

You neglected to mention that Pluto's angle to the ecliptic is 2.4 times that of Mercury. This fact is rather significant.

Dave Mitsky

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De gustibus non est disputandum.
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

True, but Pluto was discovered before we knew what a KBO was... I mean, if something similar were discovered now, then yeah, it would be classed as a KBO - albeit an exceptional one.

But I say "if it ain't broke..." - leave it alone LOL

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"The stars are my home"
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe... Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion... I've watched c-beams glitter in the dark, near the Tanhauser Gate... all those moments will be lost, in time... like tears in the rain..."

I think Parker had it right when he suggested finding out as much as possible about Kuiper Belt Objects and Pluto to see what the similarities and differences are.

This would be a good starting place: http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/faculty/jewitt/kb.html

From info on that page, you'll find that there is a whole family of KBOs that have orbits very similar to Pluto's. In fact, about 1/4 of the KBOs are "Plutinos", and half of the plutions have orbits that are closer to the sun than Pluto.

Also, there are several KBOs (including at least 1 Plutino) that are similar in size to Charon, although Pluto is twice that big in diameter.

Another point, there seem to be a large number of KBOs that have satelites, or are double objects, like Pluto and Charon.

All in all Pluto looks pretty normal for a KBO. The only thing special about it is that it's the biggest one. Which is why it was discovered decades before the others.

Now, does being the biggest KBO make it a planet? IMHO, no. But getting discovered decades before the other ones does. I know its just an accident of history, but it stands.

The term "Planet" to me, seems to have little scientific significance. The terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars) are not at all the same type of object as the gas giant planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune) - they're more like asteroids. They should never have been thrown together into the same classification in the first place but the ancients called both the gas giants and the terrestrials "planets" so we're stuck with that. And when Uranus and Neptune were discovered, we called them planets, but we didn't call Ceres and Vesta planets, and then we did call Pluto a planet. All pretty arbitrary and meaningless, if you ask me, but there you are.

So, Pluto is a KBO, and a planet. It's the only KBO that is a planet too. Just like Earth, Venus, Mars, and Mercury are the only ones of tens of thousands of rocky inner solar system objects that are also planets.

That's not hard to live with once you recognize how meaningless the term "planet" really is.