Heard on the radio just now that the centre of gravity of the binary Pluto-Charon is between the little planety things somewhere - they revolve around it.
_________________
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: wayne on 2006-08-25 01:19 ]</font>
'Planet' comes from the Greek language originally, and means "wandering star".
So in those times the definition would have been limited to those 'planets' visible by the naked eye, which wouldn't have included Neptune, Uranus, Pluto or even Mercury.
On 2006-08-25 04:28, Counterparts wrote:
'Planet' comes from the Greek language originally, and means "wandering star".
So in those times the definition would have been limited to those 'planets' visible by the naked eye, which wouldn't have included Neptune, Uranus, Pluto or even Mercury.
It's very difficult though as it is always in such proximity to the sun.
I've never seen it myself with the naked eye, but have caught it in transit using a telescope (stick a cereal box over the end of the 'scope and project onto a screen behind). That's quite a good way to watch sunspots too
Maybe the moon should be reclassified as a twin planet to earth, unique in the solar system. All the other planets' moons are significantly smaller than their planet, but our moon is a lot closer in size (relatively speaking).
