I'm already giggling from the thumbnail, I love the scared look on the other guy's face in response to Salty Burnie. And is that Super Texas in the background?
Patrick's laugh is always great.
Salty Burnie is the best Burnie
It's not that NASA isn't sure how many planets there are, it's that they aren't sure how to define a planet. There isn't a specified size that an object has to be to be considered a planet, so the whole Pluto controversy was more about categorizing than anything else.
Also, NASA can tell the composition of far off planets through Spectroscopy. That's a method where they analyze the different spectrum of light reflected by a planet. Different elements reflect different parts of the light spectrum, so by analyzing those they can get an idea of what the elemental composition of a planet is. The rest is just physics.
I think he was talking about the theory of a ninth planet beyond where pluto is, the reason it hard to determine if that planet exists is that we have to know exactly where to look to see it and theres a lot of space that that planet could be in. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_Nine
Also you are correct about why the extrasolar planets are easy to determine the composition of.
Actually I think Burnie was referencing this mysterious 9th planet that orbits even further out than Pluto. I don't really remember anything about it but I do know there was some new evidence for it recently enough. I think the problem is that it's orbit is like thousands of earth years and it's hidden behind loads of other celestial bodies so it would be very hard to observe. I think they only know about because of the effects from its gravity. Take all of this with like a fistful of salt though, because I really don't remember much about it.
Now we just need a Let Me Clarify episode about exoplanets and Kepler and whatnot. =3
also... this is not the first time they had changed the number of planets. we're all just too young to know that. Im pretty sure in the 50's they were teaching kids that there were 11 planets
80085
Science is hard.
It's funny but also frustrating at the same time! I feel like he might understand better if he actually read the articles that are the source(i.e. not some Yahoo News article that makes up half of it's own article to get clicks).
we actually have more planets then just the nine, but they are small enough not to count as major bodies, barely bigger then asteroids. the only reason Pluto is "considered" a planet is politics, the other planet right beside it doesn't count as one despite being about the same size.
According to the IAU
(2) A "dwarf planet" is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape [2], (c) has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit, and (d) is not a satellite.
I'd watch a series just about Bill
NASA does not theorize a ninth planet. Conspiracy wackos do. Mainly because we don't completely understand gravity. There are eight planets, a planetoid, Pluto and a dwarf planet Ceres in our solar system. And over 500 million planets within 100 lightyears of us.
Edit: I misspoke and said Chiron earlier but I fixed it.
Also how do I go directly to my comment? I have to scroll and find it. I guess I could Ctrl+F it. Nevermind solved my own problem.
Actually there are 4 dwarf planets; Ceres, Pluto, Makemake and Eris. Chiron is a comet, not a planet.
> NASA does not theorize a ninth planet. Conspiracy wackos do.
http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/planetx
Come again?
The site just said suggesting there MIGHT be a planet. I'm saying that theories are higher than suggestions. They are just trying to throw answers at a question they can't solve, because we don't understand gravity well enough.
Ah, the "Science" portion of the podcast. Featuring the resident "Scientist" who doesn't even read articles all the way all and just reads headlines 
Shout out to the booby calculator. 
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