The blog of the Classical Astronomy Update, a free email newsletter especially for Christian homeschool families about astronomy happenings in the night sky (though everyone is welcome!) Also, watch this space for progress reports about "Signs and Seasons," the author's upcoming homeschool astronomy curriculum!
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Once again, modern science stuggles to arrive at an arbitrary definition. According to this Yahoo News story, at the upcoming meeting of the International Astronomical Union, the professional astronomers of the world will meet to decide whether Pluto should still be considered a planet.
Pluto is an icy body on the edge of the solar system, in a region called the Kuiper Belt, where comets and other frozen masses are believed to reside. A number of large bodies have been discovered there in recent years, and now one larger than Pluto itself has been observed. So the dilemma for science is -- should the new bodies be dubbed planets or should Pluto be "demoted" from planet status?
Back in 1930, when Pluto was first discovered, there were gravity measurements that suggested the presence of a ninth planet beyond Neptune. Astronomers were eagerly searching the skies for another large gas giant. When Pluto was finally discovered, it was quickly realized that this body was much too small to fit the predictions.
At first, Pluto was believed to be the size of Earth. Over the years, it's size has been downgraded. New observations, including pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope, have revealed that Pluto is actually quite a bit smaller than the Moon. And in the last 76 years, scientists have concluded that the gravity measurements don't point to the presence of a gas giant after all. So the original reasons for including Pluto as a planet no longer exist.
For these reasons, many people (including this writer) believe that Pluto should be classified as a very large comet, and that the "head count" of planets should end with Neptune. What do you think? And why?
12:40 PM, Monday, August 14, 2006 Posted by pianogal86
I have no idea.
I commented, though, to ask you this. What's your opinions on Geocentricity? Do you think it's fact or fiction? Why or why not? I'm curious, because you're an astronomer; I want to know what you think.
Well I'm just an amateur astronomy and have no special training in the subject, beyond self-study. I've read Gerry Bouw's book on Geocentricty and think it's a clever piece of sophistry. We tread a dangerous path if we read every little verse out of context to extract some scientific meaning. For example, Eccl. 1:5 says
The Sun ariseth and the Sun goeth down and hasteth again to the place where he arose.
This verse seems to indicate movement specifically associated with the Sun, so as good little Biblical literalists, we should conclude that God states in His Word that it is the Sun, not the Earth, that moves. But this verse also states that the Sun rises in a "place" and that place is the east. But the only way the east can be a "place" is if the Earth has an edge, namely if it is flat. Other hyper-literal readings of Scripture are also used by Flat Earthers to justify their opinion. This verse (in the KJV) also indicates that the Sun is a "he," i.e. that he is male . This is of course at best a colorful use of language, such as "gender" used in the romance languages.
Anyone in the world can get on a plane or a ship and sail east and circumnavigate the globe. So a flat earth can be disproved from everyday experience. So we should ask ourselves -- did God intend in Eccl 1:5 and other similar verse to teach science or to make another point (namely that all is vanity)? Is it proper to study Scripture in this manner, to parse the words to extract every little nuance?
In his book, Gerry likes to insist that these verses be read to point to the Sun's movement, or else "God is a sloppy grammarian." But if we look at 1 Kings 7:23:
And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.
The only way the molten sea could be ten cubits across and thirty cubits around is if pi = three. But any homeschool student studying geometry learns that pi is an irrational number with an infinite number of decimal places, approximately 3.1415927. So either God was a "sloppy grammarian" in this verse, or else it was not His purpose in the context this verse to provide us with a precise scientific statement.
Geocentrism (or Geocentricity if you will) is a brand of Biblical literalism that presumes to teach contradictions of scientific conclusions that are based on here-and-now observations of the world that are measurable and quantifiable outside of Scripture, based on the semantics of reading verses out of context.
This literal approach is very different from typical Creationist readings of Genesis 1, which refers to the Creation as a specific event in space and time, not reproducible or verifiable by science, of which there were no witnesses, and of which God's revelation is taken to be the record of such unseen events.
The above notwithstanding, the fact is, astronomy "looks" geocentric, and much basic astronomy was done on this basis in ancient times. The Sun-centered theory did not catch on til the physics of Isaac Newton, upon which all the science of our high-tech world is based. One would have a very difficult time explaining the workings of modern physics in an earth-centered universe.
So anyway, I would caution anyone from jumping to any conclusions, and would encourage everyone to study science and seek the Scriptures to decide for themselves how one wishes to approach these subjects.
planets
7:34 PM, Thursday, August 24, 2006 Posted by Nancy,John,Rebecca
Whatever happened to Xena, which was announced as a new planet not long ago?
Xena is the iceball larger than Pluto, and it is also demoted by today's decision. Though this problem has been brewing for decades, I think this whole business came to head recently because the IAU balked at the idea of having a "planet" named after a fictional TV "warrior princess."
