Variation, Operationalizing & Planets

[Kromkowski@aol.com]

Some of you may have noticed that there has been 
discussion about what is a "PLANET".  Is Pluto too 
small?  Is the newly discovered object, Xena, really 
a planet?  (My five year old, whose favorite TV channel 
is the Science channel, assures me that it is.)  But 
also in the news, the has been a question about some 
very big "planets" now being "found" in other solar 
systems.

Apparantly, astronomers are considering a "definition" 
in the next few days.

Here are the masses of what we learned were planets:

Mercury: 0.33 x 10^24 kg
Venus:   4.87 x 10^24 kg
Earth:   5.98 x 10^24 kg
Mars:    0.65 x 10^24 kg
Jupiter: 1900 x 10^24 kg
Saturn:   570 x 10^24 kg
Uranus     87 x 10^24 kg
Neptune:  100 x 10^24 kg
Pluto:    0.7 x 10^24 kg

Some quick figuring, excluding Pluto.

0.33
4.87	4.54
5.98	1.11
0.65	5.33
1900	1899.35
570	1330
87	483
100	13
333.60375 533.7614	
UCL 1753.40915	
AVG 333.60375	
LCL -1086.20165 or 0

By this accounting, Pluto as well as basically everything 
is a planet.  But Jupiter is really something different.


*******************

Some more quick figuring, including Pluto.

0.33
4.87	4.54
5.98	1.11
0.65	5.33
1900	1899.35
570	1330
87	483
100	13
0.7	99.3
296.614 479.453	
UCL 1571.9614	
AVG 296.6144	
LCL -978.7325 or 0

By this accounting, Pluto as well as basically everything 
is a planet.  But Jupiter is really something different.

******************

Some more quick figuring, including Pluto but excluding 
Jupiter.

0.33
4.87	4.54
5.98	1.11
0.65	5.33
570	569.35
87	483
100	13
109.83285 179.3883
UCL 587.00582
AVG 109.83285
LCL -367.34010 or 0

Look statistical control! Jupiter not a Planet but unfortunately every is.

Conclusions:  

1.Maybe mass is not really the only 
characteristic that makes a planet a planet.

2. The newest definition under consideration might add
40 or 50+ new objects, BUT HAVE those astronomers run a 
control chart with all of these new object included!  
Maybe some like the Moon et al would not be included if 
the proposed definition included a "statistical" notion of 
variation?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definition_of_planet

Just some thoughts.  I don't know any astronomers. Please forward to appropriate authorities!

JDK

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