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I've got one better. Planets orbit their star. What if the aliens have antigravity devices so a planetary-mass object doesn't orbit its star or some other plane
by dalke 10y ago
I've got one better. Planets orbit their star. What if the aliens have antigravity devices so a planetary-mass object doesn't orbit its star or some other planet. Then what will we call it?
("That's Not A Moon...It's A Space Station!" tells us that those people long ago and far away didn't think that moon had to orbit a planet.)
To add more fun to the pile, is the "rogue planet" PSO J318.5-22 a planet? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSO_J318.5-22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PSO_J318.5-22 . And yes, the IAU has already considered this case.
- woodandsteel 10y agoI think the reason we are having this disagreement is our basic vocabulary was developed when we knew of the existence of far fewer types of objects orbiting the Sun than we do now, and we are trying to fit the new objects into our old vocabulary.