Any progress on the official name of the new planet?
It’s already called Gabrielle.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/space/10/01/new.planet.moon.ap/?section=cnn_topstories
I really hate cutesy names for stuff. Couldn’t they have stuck to the Greek and Roman gods theme like every other planet? Instead they used the name of a stupid TV show. Yeah, great. :rolleyes:
Just be happy it’s not Beavis and Butthead.
Nitpick: Nickname.
And the current official designation is S/2005 (2003 UB313) 1…
Oh heck, let’s just call it Grabielle.
Interesting what the Blogcritics say:
They should name it Alf. (after that old 80’s sitcom) He knew there was a planet there waaayyy before these guys did.
Refering to the episode where Alf got one of the kids in trouble because the kid was doing a scale model of the solar system and Alf INSISTED that he put a tenth planet on there because well, there WAS one./
Who knew?
Yeah! They should have named them George and Elizabeth.
I think they’ve pretty much used them up on planetoids and gas giant moonlets.
So are they calling it a planet, then?
Well, sorta.
This article, which is titled, “Scientists Discover 10th Planet’s Moon”, actually uses the phrase “so-called planet”, which in turn implies that the matter isn’t yet settled.
Maybe they should use some Lovecraftian names for planets, they would sound quite nifty, assuming you can pronounce them. I say call this planet Yuggoth.
I’d say that having enough gravity to keep a moon is a pretty good argument for “planet” status.
So, using the names of modern cultural icons is somehow less noble than using the names of past cultural icons? The Greek gods and goddesses were all made-up characters, too.
You mean like the moons of Uranus? 
From this morning’s NY Times, 9 Planets? 12? What’s a Planet, Anyway?. Requires (free) registration to view.
Myself, I like the “8 planets” thing. Just drop Pluto from the list. Makes it simpler. But if you’re going to keep Pluto, you’ve gotta keep “Xena”. Maybe even add that other Oort object they found recently; you know, the one that turned out to be just smaller than Pluto.
Nah, Pluto has been a ‘planet’ too long to be reclassified. It should be grandfathered in. Given that Pluto is a planet (by tradition at least), I’d say an object larger than Pluto should also be a planet; but smaller objects shouldn’t.
The guy that wrote the article agrees with you, Johnny L.A. I don’t understand it myself: “Let’s do it this way because we’ve always done it this way” is hardly scientific.
Still, as long as they come up with something consistent, I’m not gonna mind. Well, not that my minding is going to make one whit of difference anyway.
I don’t like to register for articles (I get too much spam already), so I didn’t read the link. I don’t remember the scientific arguments in the other threads. But in my opinion the line between Planet and Not-A-Planet seems to be arbitrary. If it’s arbitrary, why not draw the line at Pluto?
Well, as I implied, the committee is very fractured. Some have taken my stance of just calling it 8 and being done with it. Many have taken your stance, basically saying let’s define a planet as anything Pluto-sized or larger. There’s at least one very loud guy (by the name of S. Alan Stern) of the opinion that anything large enough to be round should count, which means including objects such as Ceres, Sedna, etc.
The committe is also looking at a related proposal that we also qualify all planets, rather than simply calling them planets. I.e., “Jovian planets”, “Terrestrial Planets”, and “Minor Planets”. So if we go with Dr. Stern’s proposal, you’ll count 4 jovians, 3 terrestrials, and countless minor planets from Mercury on down.
As you say, it is all arbitrary. We just need consistent nomenclature so we all know what we’re talking about.
Given that at least 2 asteroids, Eugenia and Ida, have moons, that’s going to make for an awful lot of planets.
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap991014.html
Personally, I’d vote out Pluto. If you include it, I think for consistency you would have to include too many other objects. (I suspect we will eventually find even more Oort objects close to Pluto’s size). After all, Pluto has only been considered a planet for 75 years, which is a pretty short time compared to the history of astronomy.