aug 16th, 2006
and then there were... 9.
pluto is being 'demoted' to a non-planet, i hear.
i was struck by the fact that hindus have always talked about the nava-grhas, the nine planets including the sun, the moon, and the quasi-planets rahu and ketu. is it possible that indian astronomers created the quasi-planets 'rahu' and 'ketu' as mathematical functions to account for the discrepancies in the orbits of the then known planets (up to jupiter and saturn) -- which in fact were caused by the hitherto unknown uranus and neptune? any paleo-astronomers reading this blog?
8 comments:
Found this link on the web that explains the importance of Rahu-Ketu in Vedic Astrology.
http://www.planetarypositions.com/notes/2005/08/rahuketu-and-eclipses.html
Good explanation.
Here are some of the vedic astrology sites I follow :
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sohamsa/messages
http://www.vedicastrologer.org/
However everything will still be in orbit around Sonia.
excerpt from Solar system count now set to swell to 12 planets
"New order
If the resolution is approved, the 12 planets in our solar system listed in order of their proximity to the sun would be Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Charon, and the provisionally named 2003 UB313. Its discoverer, Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology, nicknamed it Xena after the warrior princess of TV fame, but it likely would be rechristened something else later, the panel said."
I would prefer to reserve planet for naked-eye visible objects - the remainder can be "solar system bodies."
No, Pluto will not be demoted as far as I have followed the news. Pluto does have a moon, and so it can qualify as a planet. But then, some moons like Titan (of Saturn) are larger than Pluto.
Our Moon's diameter is about 1.5X that of Pluto!
According to the GRACE satellite experiment which found that gravity is not the same at all places on Earth:
South India has the lightest gravity
Take a look at the map.
I thought anyone who took high-school physics knows that the textbook figure of 9.8 N/kg for the force of Earth's gravity (g) at sea-level is a mean value.
In fact anyone foolish enough to declare a value derived from a single experiment of 9.8 N/kg would be suspected of cooking their data!
Even if the Earth were of a uniform composition the value for g would be higher at the poles due to the deviation of the rotating Earth's shape from a sphere - it bulges out at the equator.
Astronomers say Pluto is not a planet [http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/15344070.htm]
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Leading astronomers declared Thursday that Pluto is no longer a planet under historic new guidelines that downsize the solar system from nine planets to eight.
After a tumultuous week of clashing over the essence of the cosmos, the International Astronomical Union stripped Pluto of the planetary status it has held since its discovery in 1930. The new definition of what is - and isn't - a planet fills a centuries-old black hole for scientists who have labored since Copernicus without one.
Although astronomers applauded after the vote, Jocelyn Bell Burnell - a specialist in neutron stars from Northern Ireland who oversaw the proceedings - urged those who might be "quite disappointed" to look on the bright side.
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