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Post Info TOPIC: Plutoid
Blobrana


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RE: Plutoid
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Title: The Potato Radius: a Lower Minimum Size for Dwarf Planets
Authors: Charles H. Lineweaver, Marc Norman

Gravitational and electronic forces produce a correlation between the mass and shape of objects in the universe. For example, at an average radius of ~ 200 km - 300 km, the icy moons and rocky asteroids of our Solar System transition from a rounded potato shape to a sphere. We derive this potato-to-sphere transition radius -- or "potato radius" -- from first principles. Using the empirical potato radii of asteroids and icy moons, we derive a constraint on the yield strength of these bodies during their formative years when their shapes were determined. Our proposed ~ 200 km potato radius for icy moons would substantially increase the number of trans-Neptunian objects classified as dwarf planets.

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Blobrana


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Dwarf planets
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Pluto joined by up to 50 more dwarf planets

The status of former planet Pluto has taken another blow, with new research suggesting up to 50 known objects may also meet the criteria to be dwarf planets.
To be labelled as a dwarf planet, an object must meet two criteria, as determined by the International Astronomical Union (IAU): they must be 'nearly round' and they must orbit the Sun.
Until now, however, the point at which 'potato-shaped' planets become 'nearly round' has not been formally defined, said astronomer Charley Lineweaver from Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra.
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Blobrana


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RE: Plutoid
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Almost two years ago, during the same contentious meeting in which Pluto was demoted from a full-fledged planet to a dwarf planet,  a few other votes were taken, but mostly forgotten. One of the forgotten votes that was actually approved was that Pluto was to be declared the prototype of a new class of objects. OK. Done. What exactly that means is a bit hard to say. As far as I could tell it was an attempt to be nice to Pluto after the indignity of its demotion. Who would vote no to that?
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Blobrana


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Almost two years after the International Astronomical Union (IAU) General Assembly introduced the category of dwarf planets, the IAU, as promised, has decided on a name for transneptunian dwarf planets similar to Pluto. The name plutoid was proposed by the members of the IAU Committee on Small Body Nomenclature (CSBN), accepted by the Board of Division III, by the IAU Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature (WGPSN) and approved by the IAU Executive Committee at its recent meeting in Oslo, Norway.

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Blobrana


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The International Astronomical Union has decided on the term "plutoid" as a name for dwarf planets like Pluto.
Sidestepping concerns of many astronomers worldwide, the IAU's decision, at a meeting of its Executive Committee in Oslo, comes almost two years after it stripped Pluto of its planethood and introduced the term "dwarf planets" for Pluto and other small round objects that often travel highly elliptical paths around the sun in the far reaches of the solar system.

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Hum,
Erisoids would have been better....imho.

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