August 16, 2006

• I've been lobbying on behalf of making Ceres a planet for years. Sweet, sweet vindication at last.
• mother very easily made cute jam sandwiches using no peanuts, chilli, too (or perhaps xylophone)
• The proposal recognises eight classical planets, three planets belonging to a new category called "plutons" and the largest asteroid Ceres. Er? *looks up pluton in geologic dictionary and cues Inigo Montoya* "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
• According to this definition, two conditions must be satisfied for an object to qualify as a planet: - The object must be in orbit around a star, but must not itself be a star - It must have enough mass for the body's own gravity to pull it into a nearly spherical shape B-612 to be promoted! Yay!
• See also.
• I would almost rather them remove Pluto from the list than add a growing handful of "plutons" and such. Or maybe they could only teach the classical 8 planets in school, then astronomers could continue adding as many as they wanted and no one would really need to know or care about it.
• "The moon to whom the poets croon Has given up and died. Astronomy will have to be revised"
• Yeah, sure genial - let's just concentrate on the nice, peaceful eight planets we already know. Then when the plutonoids start to invade, you can go out and tell them that we didn't prepare any space-defences to fight them because we were too fucking stupid to deal with more than eight planets. Personally I don't want to end my days as a plutonoid suction-slave in one of their huge, acidic pleasure-vats - but I guess you think that anything is better than learning a couple more names at school. Go probe yourself, moran.
• I like the idea. And it also pretty much is in alignment with my notional definition, which I've been using informally pretty much since the whole messy issue came up: 1 - Enough mass to make it a spheroid 2 - Too little mass to generate power by nuclear fusion 3 - Orbiting a star, not another body In the new proposed definition, Charon squeaks by because the center of mass of the Pluto/Charon system is outside of Pluto -- they're both orbiting a center of mass which is between them, so I think it's fair to call it a "double planet." Or, to further steal geologic terms, call the larger partner in the double planet system the "Strike" and the smaller partner the "Dip." Charon, in this case, is the Dip. Dip.
• I'm voting for the term "blobule." Doesn't that just roll off the tongue?
• I'm impressed that we're 11 comments into this already and there's been no Uranus joke made. Next one's gonna be tough, though. because, as everyone knows, it's hard to do a dozen without Uranus...
• Poor Pluto - Drink at Work
• *Begins probing self, rather enjoys it* Say quidnunc, is there room for two in that acidic pleasure-vat? Mine's so far from the window and you know I'd love to get a better view of Uranus. . . . .....I'll let myself out
• How will these changes affect my horoscope for next month? I mean, if the information is only coming from reading just some of the planets, am I really getting a true reading? I think not.
• Don't worry, ball point head, the great part about astrology is that it's nearly infinitely flexible. For example, when Pluto was discovered, the astrologers didn't all get up in arms and say they were wrong all along -- they said "now that humanity has progressed to X level, we have found Pluto which affects us in new ways according to the level of our development." See? No fuss, no muss, no hoc.
• You're that cosmetologist, aren't you? NEAT! *munches on chips*
• When the moon is in the seventh house And 2003UB31 aligns with Charon Ennui will guide the planets So get dressed and go home
• THIS IS THE DAWNING OF THE AGE OF CAESARIANS AGE OF CAESARIANS WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
• THIS IS THE DAWNING OF THE AGE OF TIBERIUS fucker
• Get the hell back in the pleasure vat, suction-slave.
• this is the aquarium of the age of daws
• This is the spawning of the cage and aquarium ew.... the pleasure vat's gone all cloudy