I dunno if any of you have been following the news about the naming conventions concerning planets, plutons, and other miscelanoues chunks of stuff flying in space; but I am somewhat the space junkie and kept an eye on it. It seems official now that Pluto has lost its status as a planet leaving us with 8. I'm pretty sure its been stepped down to drawf status. Here is an interesting fact though. Were pluto in the same orbit around the sun as the earth is it would have a tail. We usually refer to these as comets. So the question arrises: Do they really know what they want to call everything?
Anyone else out there in CAOS have any thoughts
I wonder if and when this is going to make it into textbooks.
Honestly i doubt it will or will go in with disclaimer. This new terminology is extremely controversial in the scientific community. As we sit now there has been no one good suggestion on naming conventions and classifications. Its been a situation where everything will be a planet (giving us hundreds in our solar system) or where there will be no planets due to extremely strict guidelines. I honestly think that there will be several reviews and alterations of the standards as time progresses.
On top of that I think it will be VERY difficult to reverse years of teaching.