alt Hacker NewsSince it was stripped of planetary status, Pluto’s defenders have been fighting
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Pluto was only discovered in the 1930s. The only cultural heritage of Pluto as a ‘planet’ is a few decades of science schoolbooks, but going by these comments you'd think it's been in the same list as Jupiter since the Babylonians.
The actual problem here is weirdly aggressive nerds who are incapable of nuance, and insist that an astronomical classification (Pluto is not a planet by the IAU definition) should be used in non-astronomical contexts.
Historically and culturally, Pluto is considered a planet. An IAU classification shouldn't be used to try and retroactively change that, because the IAU does not have control over history and culture. It's a fun fact (did you know that Pluto is not classified as a planet by astronomers?) not a diktat.
Similarly, a banana is 'officially' a berry, which means that it is classified as a berry by botanists. This does not mean it is considered a berry in any other contexts. If you told someone you had made a berry crumble and it was filled with bananas, you would look strange. We have countless examples of this (often focused around food): a tomato does not belong in a fruit salad no matter what botanists say.
Different terms are used with different specificity in different settings. Language and culture and [older disciplines] are not governed by the rules of [newer disciplines or bodies]. If people with 'I love space' t-shirts would stop "um actually"-ing, no one would have a problem.
Could someone explain what the IAU means by "clearing its orbit". For example, could we consider the Earth having not "cleared its orbit" because of the Moon? The Sun attracts the Moon more strongly that Earth does, so does that mean that the Earth doesn't fit the criteria? Or does the IAU have some sort exception for moons which they've defined some place else? I'd really appreciate if someone with more knowledge could explain.
I'm in the same camp. I believe the classification of Pluto as a dwarf planet was arbitrary and inconsistent. I mean, it's been known as a planet for almost 80 years and suddenly we demote it?
I believe someone was trying to make a name for themselves here and ignoring the history of Pluto and its discovery.
The obvious solution to this issue is to destroy Pluto.(*)
Many problems can be solved by application of sufficiently powerful explosives.
(*) Or, possibly, eject it from the Solar System.
You know, this is really just a fantastic opportunity to realize the phenomenal psychological power of "headcanon". Who cares if Pluto is or is not tagged with the word "planet" by some organization you know effectively nothing about, have no control over, has no control over you, and couldn't so much as move a pebble on the planetary body in question any time in the next 20 years, if not more?
Have whatever emotional relationship you like with "Pluto" and don't wait around for others to validate it. It's fine. Nobody can stop you. I'm a bit fond of Ceres myself. Nobody can stop me. Nobody needs to approve it. Take control. Write your own headcanon.
> “One of the biggest flaws with the IAU definition is that you can have the same object in two different orbits,” says Kornfeld. “In one, it’s considered a planet, and in the other, it’s not considered a planet.”
So… planet Ganymede when? Or Titan?
In case anyone was curious, the Moon is bigger than Pluto. Pluto's 2/3 the size of the Moon. If any dwarf planet should be upgraded to a planet, it's Eris. Eris's diameter is over 600km bigger than Pluto's.
The main objection to calling Pluto a planet appears to be that if Pluto is a planet then up to about 200 other objects should also be called planets, that the list would be of unknown size and regularly changing.
That's an objection? No, that's a benefit! I think it'd be awesome to be regularly discovering new planets.
As fare as I'm concerned, Pluto is a planet. I've got a hand-written note from Clyde Tombaugh that says so. Back in the mid-1990s, a year or two before he died, I write him asking about some astronomers who were starting to question it.
I truly don't get why people have so much reverence for Pluto. And, unlike something like "fruit," which has a botanical and culinary definition which serve different purposes, I really don't get why anyone would care about the non-scientific definition of planet. Maybe I'm just ignorant here: what's the cultural significance of some celestial object being considered a planet?
This seems like the least important issue in the world to keep complaining about.
It's dumb, but whenever I see something representing the planets, I always count them. Occasionally you come across places that still include Pluto.
Most recent example I found was the Swatch MoonSwatch Collection [1], which includes the Sun, Moon, eight planets and Pluto[2].
1. https://www.swatch.com/en-us/bioceramic-moonswatch-collectio...
2. https://www.swatch.com/en-us/mission-to-pluto-so33m101/SO33M...
The problem is that the word “planet” refers both to cultural symbols — mythology, gods, archetypes, and the heavens — and to objects of scientific study. Those are different domains, and one of them is cultural heritage, and the other is irritating when it tries to infringe on the first one.
There’s no need for a god complex. Stop picking and choosing which planets are real. Scientists can create their own, more precise words for things. Planets are sacred. Things that clear their orbits are not.
You can’t subdue the public into giving up their gods out of difference to science — you’re just losing people while looking kind of dim.
I can solve this! What is incompatible with being both a dwarf planet and a major planet? Peter Dinklage is both a dwarf actor and a major actor. Just acknowledge that Pluto is both too. You're welcome.
"How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming" - awesome title for an Astronomy book
Back in my day, we had nine planets.
Back in school I learned the acronym:
My Very Easy Method Just Speeds Up Naming Planets
And it was so convenient! Does anyone know a good alternate now that the P is gone?
The claim that the IAU vote was procedurally invalid is interesting
> Pluto represents the underdog ...
I see what Schindler did there!
Let the experts decide same with any other field.
It's time to give it up. Nobody wants there to be 23 planets...
It seems as though Pluto's primary problem is "clearing the neighbourhood." Given Pluto's orbit travels closer and further from the sun than Neptune, does Neptune also have the neighborhood clearing problem since it has not cleared Pluto?
In celestial mechanics, "clearing the neighbourhood" (or dynamical dominance)
around a celestial body's orbit describes the body becoming gravitationally
dominant such that there are no other bodies of comparable size other than
its natural satellites or those otherwise under its gravitational influence.[0]
Pluto is a planet.
Pluto as one of the outer Canadian planets in the Canadian solar system, which as you now know is part of the Canadian Galaxy is realy such a trifling concern back on one of the Canadian Continents that contains Canada proper the center of Universal Canada, but since there is dissent on it's status something can be done through a referendum. go ahead,laugh, but wait till google AND wikipedia both come on board
The correct planet criteria are, IMHO:
- not a star
- not orbiting a planet
- roundish
- greater than 1000km radius
That would restore Pluto to its rightful place and add Eris.
Humanity's need to categorize things never ceases to amaze me.
Is it Art? It's not Art! Are bananas a vegetable or a fruit? Pluto definitely is a planet! No it's not!
Jesus, what a waste of energy.
Are we just realizing that asteroids come in all sizes? Do we really need a sharp boundary between those we call planets and those we don't call planets?
Can we consider planethood a spectrum? Like should we REALLY care if someone says there are 9 planets in the solar system, and the next person says 8?
We used to say there were 3 oceans, now there are 5. In reality, there's just one big saltwater lake. Do people fight about where one ocean ends and where the next one starts?
Let them call pluto a planet if they want, let them call pluto a kuiper object.
We shouldn't give a fuck.
It's been renamed to Planet America, thank you for your attention on this matter.
> “One of the biggest flaws with the IAU definition is that you can have the same object in two different orbits,” says Kornfeld. “In one, it’s considered a planet, and in the other, it’s not considered a planet.”
No, there is no flaw in this, and moreover there is nothing new in this. This is how it has always been, it is not something invented recently.
In the Solar System, there are 3 Mercury-sized satellites and other 3 Moon-sized satellites, besides the Moon. If they had not been in their orbits as satellites, they might have very well been planets. Therefore the old definition of "planet" also depended on the orbit of the body, not only on the size and shape of the body.
Most of those satellites are bigger than Pluto. Triton, the biggest satellite of Neptune, had been in the distant past another planet with an orbit close to Pluto, but it was captured by Neptune and it has become a satellite. Otherwise it would have remained a "dwarf planet", orbiting close to Pluto. So Triton was demoted from "planet" to "satellite", by Nature, not by a human organization.
The current definition of "planets" and "dwarf planets" is fine.
If anything, there are too few planet classes, not too many. A more useful classification is into big planets, medium planets and small or dwarf planets, where the Solar system has 4 big planets, 4 medium planets, and a lot of small planets.
The big planets, i.e. which are big enough to retain the volatile chemical elements, like hydrogen and noble gases, not only the refractory elements, have a very different chemical composition from the medium planets, and this difference will also exist in any other stellar system that has condensed from gases like those at the origin of the Solar System, with more oxygen than carbon (there exists the possibility of stellar systems with a different chemical composition than the Solar System, formed by condensing from gas mixtures with more carbon than oxygen).