Hal Levison: Recent Advancements in Solar System Formation
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Dr. Hal Levison of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) Department of Space Studies discusses recent advancements in the study of solar system formation with a group of science communicators on July 21, 2012. The 2012 Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) New Media Practitioners Professional Development Workshop brought seventeen bloggers, podcasters, and other science communicators to Boulder, Colorado, for a two-day intensive workshop with space scientists. The workshop was a collaborative professional development opportunity for attendees to learn about current issues surrounding future exploration of the Moon and other small bodies in our Solar System. The Colorado Center for Lunar Dust and Atmospheric Studies (CCLDAS) sponsored the event.
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According to Hal Levison, a planet must have cleared it's orbital path of debris.
But if the Earth were out there near Pluto, it would not have been able to do so.
Would this then have made the Earth a "Dwarf Planet", as well? Pluto should still
be a planet. It meets all the other criteria for being a full fledged planet. We don't need to have "All or nothing " thinking. Just reinstate Pluto, and not worry about adding hundreds of other planets just because they are Pluto's size or larger. -
Listening to Hal Levison and his view on the "planet" vs. "dwarf planet" definition thingy: Would (hypothetical) free-floating non-accretted chondrules meet the "dwarf planet" definition? Or if an astronaut onbord a spacecraft release water droplets into, would these count as "artificial dwarf planets"?
There probably don't exist any free-floating Chondrules today, as they probably all got accreted, or at least got smashed since they formed in early Solar System… but still, even small things can be "massive enough" to get into hydrostatic equilibrium, if they are liquid at formation…
(UPDATE: I just looked, and the IAU demands the object to "…overcome rigid body forces…" – so no artificial dwarf planets any time soon…)
BTW: Hal Levison gives a very good argument why we have 8 planets in our Solar System that are clearly different from "the little guys" (and why those little guys are not planets). Would be interesting how that distribution of size vs. distance extends out into the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud. Does it reach a plateau, does it fall of gradually? And how many small asteroids are there outside the asteroid belt? Surely there are some, but we can't see them, right?
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