It's good to know that the Idaho legislature isn't the only one concerned with oddball issues. The New Mexico legislature just passed a resolution that when Pluto passes over the state of New Mexico, it is a full-fledged planet again.
If Pluto actually does pass over New Mexico, I wonder what the transit time is, and how often that will occur. A nice gesture to the New Mexican discoverer of Pluto, but ultimately pointless.
2 comments:
Pluto will *NEVER* transit New Mexico. Even as eccentric as Pluto's orbit is, the sheer magnitude of it's distance from the Sun will keep it, as viewed from Earth, within a couple degrees of the ecliptic... so it will never transit beyond a couple degrees of the tropics in either direction. That isn't to say it's not viewable from New Mexico (Tombaugh discovered it from the Southwest!), but that it will never intersect a normal to any portion of the underlying spheroid within the delineated bounds of New Mexico.
So, the resolution was completely ineffectual. I thought maybe once in every few hundred years or something Pluto might cross over New Mexico.
That's great. Thanks.
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