Pluto needs your assistance.

If the inhabitants of Pluto are so upset about losing planetary status, they should have the guts to file a complaint in person :-)

Why don't they behave like real men and invade Iraq?

So, when are we going to build the torchships and test this out? ;-)

Thanks! Rich

Well, I happened to tune into some TeeVee Nooz show while the decision was going down, and they decided that Pluto should be a "dwarf planet".

I don't like that at all, not even one little bit. Maybe "secondary planet", or why not what they settled on calling the asteroids, "planetoids"?

So, Pluto's our most famous planetoid, and Ceres is our ... --- =:-O

Geez! They've already got a name - "Minor planets".

Would it insult Pluto to include her with them?

I'm looking up diameters now... Pluto: diameter: 2274 km mass: 1.27e22 kg

Ceres: Dimensions: 975×909 km Mass: 9.5×10e20 kg

Heh - here, they call Ceres a "dwarf planet":

So, what can you say? Go figure. ;-)

I wonder if there's anybody left who's smart enough to rewrite all of those textbooks? ;-)

Cheers! Rich

Well, it's not round. But the escape velocity is more than how fast a man could, um, shove himself off of it - and if he jumps really really high, don't forget that he won't land light as a feather - he could go, maybe, a mile high, depending on gravity - well, anybody wanna do the math? from

So, at a gravity of 0.27 m/s^2, if a man could jump straight up, say, two feet (I wouldn't want to try to run on an object like that, but it might be interesting too) on Earth, how high would he go over Ceres?

and, the other point, he lands just as hard no matter where he jumps - _all_ of the gravitational energy comes right back, so be careful how you land!

Cheers! Rich

Thanks, Rich

Pluto-Charon is already a binary "dwarf planet". I don't know why they didn't stick with "minor planet", or even "planetoid". I say, the criterion should be, is it a sphere under its own gravity?

And there's certainly nothing "binary" about Neptune and Pluto - their orbits cross about once every couple hundred years. Pluto and Charon are so binary that they're tidally locked to each other.

Thanks, Rich

Well, they could say, "binary dwarf planet" or "dwarf binary planet".

Maybe Pluto is still uniqe - the next biggest candidate for "dwarf" is Ceres, and it's not even spherical. I say that should be the determining factor: is it spherical under its own gravity? Maybe you could even call Pluto a "captured planet". ;-) Or Pluto+Charon a "captured binary planet."

I wish I'd been there. Sigh. )-;

Cheers! Rich

I say, the cutoff should be, spherical under its own gravity. This disqualifies Ceres, but apparently Pluto, and even Charon, are spherical.

So they should have left well enough alone. Pluto is the red-headed step-child, the little match girl on the outside looking in, wishing to belong... )-;

;-)

Thanks, Rich

Earth's gravitational acceleration at the surface is 9.8m/s^2. Something about F = ma and x = at^2 so, na na na na..about 36 times higher, or about 7 stories over the surface.

Tim

In message , dated Thu,

... and Earth, of course, and Jupiter....

None spherical.

Well, how about spherical within, say, +- 5%?

How's that? ;-)

Cheers! Rich

Because its a French colony?

You clearly have never even seen a picture of a Real Man. Real Men don't go on crusades - they're better than that. Only craven cowards send armies on crusades.

Sorry. Rich

They have, it's just that it takes a looong time for the post to get through.

see the first chapter of Hitch hikers guide to the universe

martin

Well, five and a half hours, on average. So today isn't too soon. :-)

Oops - eleven hours, round trip. :-)

Cheers! Rich

Eleven hours? That's some postal service there ... I must be using the cheap one :)

Mike.