11 What?!

Onhell

Onhell

Infinite Dreamer
2008.02.27 • 13:49 EST
Mnemonic for 11 planets sure beats "Roy G. Biv," "Homes"

Sports Illustrated

© robinvanmourik

Maryn Smith, a 10-year-old fourth-grader at Riverview Elementary School in Great Falls, Mont., knows that there are 11 planets in the solar system. In order of increasing distance from the sun, they are, of course, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and Eris.

The trouble is, you and millions of Americans just like you don't know any of this.

You vaguely remember Venus because that's where ladies come from, and Mars because of the rock that looks like a face. And you've got no idea -- none, nada -- about Ceres and Eris, two of the solar system's dwarf planets, along with Pluto, which word conjures in your mind a picture of Mickey's dog.

So how to school you on space? This was Maryn's quest.

Inspired by a contest put on by the National Geographic Society, her class set about coming up with a mnemonic for the solar system's 11 planets. You know, like "Roy G. Biv" for the colors of the rainbow -- red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet -- or, for the Great Lakes, "Homes" (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior).

Maryn won the contest with her thoroughly excellent phrase:
My Very Exciting Magic Carpet Just Sailed Under Nine Palace Elephants.

Mnemonics work when they're memorable. And Maryn's, which she says was inspired by "Aladdin," sure is. The magic carpet! Those palace elephants! How can you forget?

According to Maryn's local paper, other entries from her class included:
My Very Extraordinary Mother Carrie Just Served Us Nine Pizzas Each.

and
My Very Extraordinary Mother Can Jog Superly Under Nasty Particular Elves.

It's clear why those don't work: How would you remember that the mom's named Carrie? And "superly"? And what's the deal with elves being "particular"? It makes no sense! Not like the magic carpet and nine palace elephants, which is totally logical and right.

Maryn's mnemonic will be published in a forthcoming National Geographic book, "11 Planets: A New View of the Solar System."

According to the Associated Press -- and this part is totally true -- it will also be recorded into a song by Lisa Loeb.

"My Very Exciting Magic Carpet..." could be Loeb's biggest hit -- her only hit! -- since "Stay."
Click to expand...
http://machinist.salon.com/blog/2008/02/27/11_planet/index.html?source=rss&aim=/tech/machinist/blog

Ok... WTF? Since when do we have 11 planets? Everybody made a big hoopla over Pluto being DEMOTED and now that is null and void again and we have two more "dwarfs" to boot? Who comes up with this shit? Seriously.
 
Ceres, Pluto, and Eris are classified as "Dwarf Planets".  I don't know what the difference is either.
 
As LooseCannon states the article is inaccurate....the mnenmonic is not for 11 planets, but for 8 planets and 3 dwarf planets in our solar system.  The idea of including dwarf planets seems a little excessive.....but I guess people just don't want to let Pluto go....I blame Disney.  It's suspected that there could be many more dwarves out there......so they'd better keep this girl handy for when they need a new mnemonic.
 
This whole "Dwarf Planet" thing started when Eris was discovered, and people didn't want to change their perceptions of 9 planets, thus it was dubbed a "dwarf".  Then they said...hey, the damn thing is bigger than Pluto!  Then they tossed Ceres in when they decided to send missions to the lil asteroid type thing.
 
Hang on, isn't Eris that "dwarf planet" or whatever they used to call Xenia a couple of years back?
 
Yes it is Perun, after its initial discovery. I, for one, am all for cataloging and classifying as many objects as possible as planets. Personal preference; I don't see what the fuss is about, some will stick with their ideas on what constitutes a planet and some will do the opposite. To me, if it is (or nearly is) spherical and it orbits the sun, it's a planet.
 
Deano said:
Yes it is Perun, after its initial discovery. I, for one, am all for cataloging and classifying as many objects as possible as planets. Personal preference; I don't see what the fuss is about, some will stick with their ideas on what constitutes a planet and some will do the opposite. To me, if it is (or nearly is) spherical and it orbits the sun, it's a planet.
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Cool, then I know them all! :D
Yeah, I've got the same categorisation. And if it's spherical and orbits a planet, it's a moon.
 
Exactly! I was just waiting for someone to come back and say "Well the moon orbits the sun too but its a moon." To which my reply would have been, "What I mean is, orbits the Sun as it's PRIMARY gravitational object."

I've devoted way too much thought to this.  :blink:
 
You should......

What it is is the home of the emperor and the dog-giant Draffut. It also contains the original waters of the Lake of Life.
 
The idea of "Dwarf" planets is moronic. An asteroid is NOT a planet and neither is some stray rock from the Kipper Belt. Just because it orbits a star does not make it a planet whether spherical or not. Specially Pluto which is completely inconsistent with the composition of the solar system. The Gas Giants are such because the gravitational pull is not strong enough to solidify them, the Kipper Belt is flat out debris, like the asteroid belt, which reportedly is a "missing" planet that was not able to form due to Jupiter's gravitational pull. Thus Pluto is nothing more than space junk and people should just accept it.
 
They'll be updating astronomy books like mad at this rate  :smartarse:

The controversy of all this was kind of interesting because of the legacy of its discoverer. Planet or not, it was a milestone in astronomy. :D

Personally I don't really care how many planets we have, as long as we save the third rock from the son for generations to enjoy.
 
Mmm...Donuts said:
Personally I don't really care how many planets we have, as long as we save the third rock from the son for generations to enjoy.
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third son of a third son? :p
 
Third rock of a seventh son of a never-before-heard-of dwarf planet. Which, in itself, is seven times as old as this post.
 
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