Re: Mnemonic for the Planets
i just can't believe that they took the time to make a whole article about this.
If some 10 yr old kid memorized the first 10 digits of PI should that make the news too?
Re: Mnemonic for the Planets
"VikingMike" wrote:
Quote:
[size=13pt]Mnemonic for 11 planets sure beats "Roy G. Biv," "Homes"[/size]
Maryn Smith, a 10-year-old fourth-grader at Riverview Elementary School in Great Falls, Mont., knows that there are 11 planets in the solar system. In order of increasing distance from the sun, they are, of course, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and Eris.
I had heard Pluto was no longer considered one of the planets in our Solar System, but when did they add Ceres and Eris?
???
It happened at the same time.
Eris is slightly larger than Pluto, and its discovery is what prompted the reclassification.
The IAU actually originally tried to add Eris and Ceres to the list of planets, but this met with a lot of criticism.
So instead they changed the definition of a planet and Pluto, Ceres and Eris were all reclassified as dwarf planets.
Quote:
The IAU ... resolves that planets and other bodies, except satellites, in our Solar System be defined into three distinct categories in the following way:
(1) A planet1 is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit.
(2) A "dwarf planet" is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape2, (c) has not cleared the neighborhood around its orbit, and (d) is not a satellite.
(3) All other objects3, except satellites, orbiting the Sun shall be referred to collectively as "Small Solar System Bodies".
