Two books

Thank you very much. The earlier post discussed the fuzzy semantics of
the words "planet" and "moon". By naming the top 15 objects in the solar
system, we find that one of the "planets" is not on the list, but 6 of the
"moons" are. The discovery of a Kuiper Belt object larger than Pluto
would further muddy the semantic water with respect to the words planet,
moon, and asteroid.

Many school children can rattle off the sequence of the nine planets, but
very few know the top 15 or top 17 objects in the solar system, much less
their ordering. This item is, I think, of some concern to ssi_list ---
many of us believe that there is a natural tendency in the populace at
large to romanticize "planets", a tendency that is not particularly
favorable to the goals of SSI.

Ron

"Huebner, Jay" jhuebn@...
10/17/01 07:01 PM

In response to "Name the top 15 largest objects in the Solar System, in
descending order of size." The Sun, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune,
Earth, Venus, Mars, Ganymede, Titan, Mercury, Callisto, Io, Triton, the
Moon, Europa, Pluto (17th), but these are the known objects. Pluto is a
Plutino (in a 2 to 3 resonance with Neptune); there are about 15 other
known
plutinos (see http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/faculty/jewitt/kb/plutino.html.
Pluto is also a Kuiper belt object; these objects are being discovered at
a
rate of about 100 per year (see
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/cfa/ps/lists/TNOs.html). Some estimates suggest
there are a trillion more to be discovered. If so one can bet there will
be
some larger than Pluto. Mass might be a better way to classify "size" but
it is another issue, and unless there is a satellite which can be seen to
be
orbiting an object, it is hard to get the object's mass. Some KB objects
may have other resonance's with Neptune.
Sincerely, Jay Huebner at jhuebn@...