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.
Since it was stripped of planetary status, Pluto’s defenders have been fighting
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Re: Since it was stripped of planetary status, Pluto’s defenders have been fighting
#22The 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.
Re: Since it was stripped of planetary status, Pluto’s defenders have been fighting
#23Bring back Pluto!
As the article explains, if you bring back Pluto you must include Eris too, and perhaps Makemake and Haumea if you ignore is not as round as expected, and who know how many other undiscovered small object near them. (And Ceres? I like Ceres.) Anyway, 9 is not an option, you must choose 8 or 10+.
I'm on board with all the dwarf planets. MVEMCJSUNPHME should be easy to make a mnemonic.
Re: Since it was stripped of planetary status, Pluto’s defenders have been fighting
#24This seems like the least important issue in the world to keep complaining about.
Re: Since it was stripped of planetary status, Pluto’s defenders have been fighting
#25I'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.
My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine...uhhhm... !?
Re: Since it was stripped of planetary status, Pluto’s defenders have been fighting
#26It 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 ar…
The "Criteria" section of that article clarifies the question. Neptune holds Pluto in an orbital resonance, which qualifies as Neptune gravitationally dominating its neighborhood. Perfect, 100% clearance is not expected anyway, since that's basically impossible in a real, dirty world where things move around.
Re: Since it was stripped of planetary status, Pluto’s defenders have been fighting
#27I'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.
I'm on team Pluto here but no, the problem was that Mike Brown found like a dozen 'planets' and no one wanted to deal with that. It was closer to preventing someone from making a name for themselves.
Re: Since it was stripped of planetary status, Pluto’s defenders have been fighting
#28It 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 ar…
Trans-neptunian objects, including Pluto, are in orbital resonance. They owe their stable orbits to the existence of Neptune. It’s like saying Jupiter is not a planet because the Trojans exist.
...or like saying Earth is not a planet because NEA's share our orbit.
If you have to argue that it doesn't apply to Jupiter or Earth because they are obviously planets, it implies that "clearing the neighbourhood" is a vague and not particularly useful criteria.
Re: Since it was stripped of planetary status, Pluto’s defenders have been fighting
#29I'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.
How to keep Pluto as a planet but say larger objects than it that also orbit the sun aren't planets, is the question I guess?
Literally say Pluto is a planet through the collective statements of parties involved.
This is like when English professors gripe about word usage in books. That's wrong, you can't do that. Then society at large does it and it becomes correct usage. We define our world.
Re: Since it was stripped of planetary status, Pluto’s defenders have been fighting
#30The 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.