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I just wished they hadn't indicated this new planet is the "ninth planet". Dwarf planets are no less planets than little people are people.
by purpled_haze 11y ago
I just wished they hadn't indicated this new planet is the "ninth planet". Dwarf planets are no less planets than little people are people.
- roborodent 11y agoThe video I saw from Caltech suggested a mass of 1-10 times Earth's.
- purpled_haze 11y agoYou misunderstood. I was saying that this new planet is not the 9th planet if you include dwarf planets as "planets".
- nkrisc 11y agoWell, then I say it's fair to assume they are not considering the dwarf planets as planets. If they did, they would not have called it the ninth planet as you have pointed out.
- karlshea 11y ago> Dwarf planets are no less planets than little people are people. They certainly are, since they haven't cleared their orbit. If you're not going to accept the term, then where's the cutoff? Should we count every asteroid in the belt just because they are orbiting the sun?
- kefka 11y agoThe answer is that Pluto isn't some sort of classification issue. The proper answer is that Pluto is a planet because of historical reasons (by fiat). By definition, it is a planet, and the asteroids in the asteroid belt are simply asteroids. From then on, you can apply the rules of a "planet" later on to other bodies, like this one.
- karlshea 11y ago> The proper answer is that Pluto is a planet because of historical reasons (by fiat) I disagree that Pluto should somehow have this distinction. Along with all of the reasons it shouldn't be considered a planet under the current definition, it was only discovered in 1930 so it's not like we've been seeing this dot in the sky since humanity was in caves. Even if I were to agree, then Ceres should also be considered a planet since it was discovered earlier.