Science: Protest Claws at Stripping Pluto's Status
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By AP Wire Services  LAS CRUCES, N.M.  -- Size doesn't matter.
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Traces of plutonium from nuclear tests in Nevada 50 years ago can be traced in British soil, scientists are to reveal.
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NASA -- When the National Research Council recommended Solar System exploration goals for 2000-2010, the number one priority was sending a probe to explore Pluto and an area just beyond it known as the Kuiper Belt.     NASA plans to make that goal a reality...
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It's been 75 years since the discovery of Pluto, but it remains a mystery. Perhaps in another 10 years some of its secrets will be revealed when a space probe gets close enough for a good look.
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Greenpeace demonstrators chained themselves to a truck near a nuclear treatment facility in western France in a bid to stop an imminent shipment of US military-grade plutonium reaching the plant, resulting in ...
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The leading theory of how planets form is being revised because of new observations from the US Spitzer Space Telescope. The process is not as smooth and quiet as once thought, but rather the result of violent collisions between massive space rocks.
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A new report released by an American Physical Society (APS) Special Committee on NASA Funding for Astrophysics has questioned the space agency's Moon, Mars and Beyond initiative. The APS assessment warns that t  he cost of overcoming technological challenges to make real the plan could far exceed budgetary projections and that numerous&nbsp;approved science programs could be jeopardized.
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Detailed observations from the first comet samples returned to Earth are debunking some of science's long-held beliefs on how the icy, celestial bodies form.
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The dwarf  planet that effectively forced astronomers to strip Pluto of its planethood is  not only bigger than the former ninth planet, but also much more massive, a new  study finds.
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By Jon W. Glass, The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, Va.  Dec. 12--WALLOPS ISLAND -- Disappointed Air Force officials say it will be Thursday "at the very best" before their Minotaur I rocket will blast off here for space.
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The space rock formerly known as Xena The distant rock which prompted astronomers to strip Pluto of its planethood has been offically named Eris, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) announced Wednesday.â¦
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Wednesday after a more than two-week journey from Charleston in the United States. They fear it is vulnerable to. plutonium will be recycled into nuclear fuel.
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The IAU's recent decision to retain Pluto as a planet was a political attempt to catch up with two trends: the recent discoveries by Mike Brown and his colleagues of new planetary objects, and a growing unease about Pluto's place in the classical notion of what a planet is. Whether or not they made the right decision about Pluto is rather pointless, as there are certainly more important things astronomers have to worry about. Although it is controversial amongst astronomers. And think of those poor astrologers and their horoscopes: "Your Libra is in the House of Quaoar. So, um, that makes you very cold and distant?"  If Pluto gets called a Planet or a Pluton or a Salami Sandwich in children's textbooks just isn't that important in the larger scheme of things. So certainly, the IAU got it right, for now: just let popular and historical notions hold sway. However, the IAU did not address a third trend on the horizon: we are beginning to discover planets outside of our solar system. This means our traditional notion of what a planet is and isn't is about to be challenged in a whole new bunch of ways that Pluto and Mike Brown could never muster. We are going to be exposed to a whole new cornucopia of exotic objects orbiting other stars in the next few decades. In this regard, the IAU's recent Solar Sytem-centric and politically rendered decisions just don't cut it.
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The distant world whose discovery prompted Pluto's demotion from the rank of "planet" will be called Eris.
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The dwarf planet formerly known as Xena received a new name, while Pluto was given a number to reflect the loss of its status as a planet.
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Not long after puny Pluto was stripped of its planethood, Janis Robinson started selling $25 "PLUTO IS A PLANET" T-shirts on the Internet.
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By Contra Costa Times, Walnut Creek, Calif.  Sep. 5--FOR THE PAST 76 years, Pluto has been an impostor, posing as one of the nine planets in our solar system.