Large New World Discovered Beyond Neptune

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/050729_new_planet.html is a better article.

I'm not sure how "they" always "talking about it" makes you sure "it's out there." More planets could easily exist, but Planet X cropping up in science fiction and random internet hypothesis doesn't make me believe more planets exist. The problem with new planets in our system at this point is that if we haven't discovered them yet, there's a good chance they're even crazier duds than Pluto. The new object is pretty damn far out and on a weird plane. There's going to be a big movement calling it just another Kuiper Belt object, like all the other tenth planet claims that have come up recently.
 
This is almost just like what happened when they found Sedna. I think the major difference here is the thing's size. If it is bigger than Pluto like they're saying then the scientific community may have to finally decide on what exactly qualifies as a planet and what doesn't. So far all I've heard on what makes a heavenly body a planet rather than an orbiting asteroid or planetoid is it's size. So I guess we will find out later when they see fit to announce something.
 
Am I the only one who finds this whole "moon or planet or asteroid" thing silly? It doesn't matter whether they call this thing a planet, planetoid, moon, or even A Large Space Turd (tm) - at the end of the day, it's still just another entirely unimportant rock floating out in the middle of nowhere that nobody cares about. It doesn't mean anything to anyone, and it would still not mean anything if it was called a planet or even a star. Similarly, they could call the Earth whatever they wanted, and at the end of the day it would still be the Earth. So, who cares what they call it?
 
It matters because somone wants to be famous like Gallileo. As for me I find all this rather fascinating, I've always loved space and the things floating around in it. And who knows, maybe sometime in the distant fute we could colonize the thing? :p
 
Quarto said:
Am I the only one who finds this whole "moon or planet or asteroid" thing silly? It doesn't matter whether they call this thing a planet, planetoid, moon, or even A Large Space Turd (tm) - at the end of the day, it's still just another entirely unimportant rock floating out in the middle of nowhere that nobody cares about.
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I don't think the debate it just what you classify it as. At issue is whether or not it is important enough to care about as a planet. It might not matter to you what they classify it as, but whether it gets officially called a planet or a rogue rock will have a significant impact on how much attention is paid to it in the future. Because of the size, it's definitely not "just another rock" for now.
 
Let's see...
joke n.
1) Something said or done to evoke laughter or amusement, especially an amusing story with a punch line.
2) A mischievous trick; a prank.
3) An amusing or ludicrous incident or situation.
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That's what I thought.. what's that have to do with anything in this thread?
 
Indoril Nerevar said:
Do you know what a joke is?
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A joke in this case would be something that fits the definition of the mysterious object but is a Privateer reference. New planet discovered? Maybe it's the weapons cache! Maybe it's the Steltek Drone! Etc.

"Large planet discovered? Must be a jump point!" is kind of like "What's black and white and read all over? Oranges!" At best it's just plain not a joke... at worst it's exceptional ignorance as to what a jump point is.

(The weapons cache probably isn't even a reasonable reference anymore; I'm sure the Privateer Remake actually has an asteroid full of free weapons.)
 
Well when spiritplumber comes back and starts crying because nobody liked his joke I won't be held responsible.

As to whether or not this thing will be a planet, I kind of hope it will be. If they decide to call it such it will be one more thing out there to study in more detail, rather than be mostly forgotten by the normal non-scientific community like Sedna. Most people won't care about it if it turns out to be another kuiper belt object, but I for one would appreciate the publicity. It might even spark up more interest in the space program again, something that's been needed for quite some time in my opinion.
 
Sorry ^^; it would be cool if we found a gravitic anomaly though... and very much agreed on the space program.

as for the weapons cache: Priv Remake has it and Gemini Gold doesn't.
 
Ridgerunner said:
... if we don't get off our butts and get out there, what difference does it make?
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I agree. It's rather depressing if you consider men walked on the moon in the sixties, when I wasn't even born yet & now, since '72, the farthest a human has gone is in orbit around Earth.
We're going nowhere.
The only exploration that is being done is by telescope : Oh, look! Another planet we'll never get to visit in our lifetime. :(
 
Got to agree...rather disappointing that we haven't expanded beyond our planet in the last 4 decades. Damnit...they'd better get a move on things! :)
 
Too many touchy feely pussies in NASA nowadays. We need Mercury/Gemini/Apollo project types. You know, "Dear Lord, please don't let me fuck up." "I'm cooler than you are, so why don't you fix your little problems and light this candle!" "Failure is not an option!" "If you can't take getting your nose bloodied, stay home." Oh, wait, that was "Q".
 
You have to consider, the manned space programme was never about space exploration. Mercury, Gemini, Apollo... nobody in the government really wanted to get man in space or man on the moon for the sake of being there. They just wanted to do it because the Soviets were doing it (and the Soviets wanted to do it because the Americans were...).

Today, there is no space race, so nobody's wasting money on manned space exploration. The moment somebody figures out how to make a profit on it, however - then everything will change.

The way I see it, here's what's gonna happen. Now that somebody's won the X-Prize, over the next few years we'll see the winner of the X-Prize trying to figure out how to bring the costs down so as to allow people-who-are-rich-but-not-millionaires to afford orbital tourist flights. In the meantime, someone will propose a new prize (for sake of argument, we'll call it the M-Prize) for the first private ship to orbit the moon. Once somebody wins that, we'll be all set for new manned moon landings, and beyond that... Mars awaits. Of course, this won't happen overnight, it'll take many years.

And meanwhile, the government? Well, though I hope to be proven wrong, I get the impression that in fifteen years' time, nobody will remember that the US government committed itself to getting to Mars in that timespan. Not unless the Chinese decide to try it...
 
spiritplumber said:
Sorry ^^; it would be cool if we found a gravitic anomaly though... and very much agreed on the space program.
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As it seems, sadly impossible. It's the Kuiper Belt, circling around the sun. It's for a gravitic anomaly (even for an anomaly) impossible to go with the flow of the beld. It would be another gravitational centre. Like a quasar (radio galaxy) which on the other hand can't take place in our galaxy (goodbye Charybdis). For a substellar object like the the fictious wormholes/star-lanes/jump point whatever of WC, I have no clue in which way it could affect its cosmological surrounding as bring some special accelerated and vectored object to another point within the space...
 
Quarto said:
The way I see it, here's what's gonna happen. Now that somebody's won the X-Prize, over the next few years we'll see the winner of the X-Prize trying to figure out how to bring the costs down so as to allow people-who-are-rich-but-not-millionaires to afford orbital tourist flights. In the meantime, someone will propose a new prize (for sake of argument, we'll call it the M-Prize) for the first private ship to orbit the moon. Once somebody wins that, we'll be all set for new manned moon landings, and beyond that... Mars awaits. Of course, this won't happen overnight, it'll take many years.
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If anything gets space exploration going, it will be the X-Prise. They changed it to an annual race, which will start in 2007. The race could be what we need.
 
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