Poor Pluto
I didn’t see anything seriously wrong with the proposed definition of planets as bodies orbiting the sun and having sufficient gravity to be spherical.
Apparently that was just too controversial, as the official word is now planet Pluto no longer (via Catallarchy). The article says nothing of the official definition, or whether this is purely arbitrary. One would hope they applied a definition that would fit in any other solar system, not merely one that says “yo, you guys stay, you go, you lowly Kuiper object you; you make us want to throw up a little.”
If there’s a formal definition that is reasonable and led to the desired result, it probably has something to do with some elements of orbital plane, shape or size.
Funny thing is, there was such a furor over the expansive proposal, this will go over easily. Had they gone straight to this, there might have been as much furor the other way.
Another funny thing is, now that they’ve defined something easily identifiable by size, shape and orbit - big enough to form a sphere with its own gravity, orbiting the primary - but chosen not to call that “planet,” I wonder if there will be a word for it.
Of course, at a time like this I can’t help thinking something like “that’s no planet, that’s a space station!”
Update:
Here’s a better article, which explains how they got there. It’s not such a deviation after all, basically adding a clause to the definition much discussed in the past week. Here’s the definition from the article, with the change bolded by me:
“a celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a ... nearly round shape, and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit.”
That even makes some sense. The asteroid and Kuiper belts are debris fields, apart from Pluto’s crossing with Neptune’s orbit. The orbits of the eight major planets are clear.
So it is applicable to any solar system, and we do have a new category: dwarf planets, favored by the Snow White Mining and Terraforming Company.
"So it is applicable to any solar system, and we do have a new category: dwarf planets, favored by the Snow White Mining and Terraforming Company.”
LOL—Really good one!
Posted by on 08/27 at 01:27 PM
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