Maybe it depends on whose reputation gets tarnished or burnished by calling
an object a 'planet' or a 'something else'?
If there are a lot of 'whatever they ares' out there about where Pluto is,
around Pluto's size and in variously inclined orbits perhaps there ought to
be a specific term for them that's different from 'planet'. I rather
question calling Mars' orbiting bodies moons, they look more like large
asteroids who happen to have been grabbed, not proper moons at all.
Jupiter's bigger moons qualify as such, being globes, but some of the
smaller ones are just large chunks of 'stuff'. Perhaps while we're about it
we should rename those objects too.
Elena
-----Original Message-----
I had thought it was a Large Round Thing. Now I see that my definition
was a little imprecise:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/050729_new_planet.html
--J/QM
Received on 2005-07-30 21:38:26