Space 01 Feb 2006 03:46 pm
Looking at Pluto
Interesting developments… it looks like 2003 UB313, about which I wrote here and here, is smaller than it was thought. It is so reflective that it looks larger than it is, and this means that it may not be larger than Pluto after all (update: it turns out that it is, indeed, 30% larger than Pluto). Not that this changes much about the discussion of whether it is a planet or not, and the same goes for Pluto.
And, speaking of Pluto, New Horizons is on its way there, and you now can see exactly where it is. It is the fastest spacecraft ever made: it crossed the Moon’s orbit barely nine hours after its launch. But it will still take ten years to get to Pluto, even after a gravity-assist maneuver around Jupiter. When it gets there, it will study closely Pluto and however many moons it has: it looks like two more, in addition to Charon, were recently found. If New Horizons is as effective at finding moons as the Voyagers where, people should start thinking about new names before it gets there… (then, again, Earth-based telescopes get better every day; in ten years we may well have found them all)
on 09 Oct 2006 at 9:05 pm 1.Kemal Milar said …
Why they are searching the tenth Planet? Pluto is a planet and it affects humans horoscope chart.
I am an astrologer. Pluto is a planet and its influce on the birth chart is so strong. if Pluto make an aspect to the birth chart especially Sun, Moon and the rising sign.
In your personal horoscope Pluto symbolizes death, rebirth, sex, evolution, degeneration and regeneration. In your personal chart if Pluto conjunction, square, opposition with your Sun it gives strog ego and makes you oppressive. If Pluto conjunction, square, opposition with your Venus it gives strong jealousy.
So astrolgers always observed Pluto’s infuluces on peoples personal horoscope charts.
on 10 Oct 2006 at 10:50 am 2.Wilson said …
That’s not true. In fact, had astrologers observed Pluto’s influence on people since the beginning of astrology, it would have been discovered much earlier; it was only found in 1930. Same goes for Neptune and Uranus: astrologers only started using them after astronomers found them, and they were found not because of their supposed influence on people, but because of their very real gravitational influence on other planets.
I do think that this is the worst possible indictment of astrology: “professional” astrologers have been doing it for millenia without ever realizing that they were missing three planets. Were it a real science, any decent astrologer would have been able to predict the existence of Uranus, Neptune and Pluto with relative ease. No one ever did.
on 10 Oct 2006 at 4:41 pm 3.Kemal Milar said …
Abd Al-Karim al Gili (Abdul Karim al-Jili) in his book Al-insan al-kamil is a sufi master. In his book he says”people only sees these Seven Planets, but there are 3 of them too. People do not see them, bu for the saints there are 3 more!”.
Do you know why he says there were 3 more planets!.thanks for your reply again. The Number must be 10, not more, not less.
on 10 Oct 2006 at 4:59 pm 4.Wilson said …
No, I don’t know. Do you? He might simply want to round up the number so as to make it more perfect. Note that, since he lived in the 1300s and 1400s, the interesting part is not that he says that there are three more planets, but that he says that people see seven of them. At that time, the number of known planets was actually six (granted, he could be counting the Moon as a planet, but that does create more problems than it solves).
But, even if we were to assume that he actually knew about Uranus, Neptune and Pluto (and I don’t think he did), there’s still the issue of not a single astrologer predicting the location of the “missing” planets based on the unexpected influences wrecking their predictions. It should be failry easy to correlate several charts and find out that a planet with such and such influence should be in such zodiacal house at such and such times. I don’t think any astrologer, before the late 1700s, even claimed that there were planets missing, let alone point to their locations.
on 10 Oct 2006 at 6:59 pm 5.Kemal Milar said …
Yes, I Know. Because He Knows 1 And O world. Like us. The Number is 10 ( Ten ).