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This is very misleading, and it looks to be intentionally so. The author pretends that "cleared its orbit" means "cannot share its orbit with any sort of rock".

by DCKing 10y ago

This is very misleading, and it looks to be intentionally so. The author pretends that "cleared its orbit" means "cannot share its orbit with any sort of rock". But that's not at all how "cleared its orbit" is defined. The excellent Wikipedia page [1] on what "cleared its orbit" really means should tell you enough. Firstly, this asteroid would be several magnitudes below the amount of mass necessary to strip Earth from its status. Secondly, due to this body being in orbital resonance with Earth its mass would not even count towards the mass that Earth has not cleared out of its orbit. This also counts for 3753 Cruithne, one of Earth's other known co-orbitals [2] which we've known about for years without making a fuzz, also because it has insignificant mass and is in orbital resonance. Given the tone of the article and how easily it can be falsified, it seems to me the author is deliberately misleading his audience to push his nostalgia for Pluto's planethood. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearing_the_neighbourhood https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearing_the_neighbourhood [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasi-satellite#Earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasi-satellite#Earth

sxp 10y ago
This is either a clickbait article or a weak April Fools' joke.
- waterhouse 10y ago
  The date on the Medium article is Mar 21.
jessriedel 10y ago
It's weird someone can can get so worked up that they use the term "outrage" (apparently seriously) for an atronomical re-definition.
runarberg 10y ago
Regardless of the validity of the premise, the conclusion—and the point—of the article is valid. Debating over the definition of planets is silly. It feels as if this is done just so school children can pass astronomy tests by residing the names of all 8 planets. Otherwise there is no point in holding this definition, or any definition for that matter. It is a known problem classifying most natural phenomena is at best difficult—but most likely impossible—to do so under a simple definition. What most naturalists do is to holding a set of common beliefs over what belongs in which category. For example, there is no easy definition of a bird. Rather we have a set of common beliefs over which animals can rightly be called a bird. Worse, the set of “common beliefs” varies depending on field of interests. Some people might talk about viruses as “living” because that servers their purpose (it makes their work easier; it makes more sense) while other wont. I hope that we soon stop this silly debate. Our definition of a planet will not hold for long. The more planets we discover the weaker the current definition will become (this is the authors point). When that happens I bet people will talk about Pluto (and Eris, Sedna, etc.) as a planet just because it matches peoples idea of what a planet is. Just like people talk about viruses as living organisms just because it fits nicely into what we think life is. --- edit: grammar
- kevin_thibedeau 10y ago
  There are a multitude of objective measures that can be applied to planet classification. In almost all of them, Pluto is an obvious outlier. The controversy hype was manufactured by the press looking for a sensation.
  - runarberg 10y ago
    The same can be said about birds. You can say that for an animal to be considered a bird it: a) has to have feathers, b) has to have warm blood, c) cannot have claws on its wings, d) cannot have teeth. But than you find one animals that we can all agree is a bird that has claws on its wings while still a chick (will it grow up to become a bird?). So you use a new definition. Bird are evolutionary descendant some reptiles had contained feathers and warm blood. This will (mostly) hold out until we discover some extinct groups of reptiles that had feathers and warm blood. Note though how vague the latter definition is. It has to be. Because we cannot derive at a solid definition of a bird that encapsulates all animals that we can consent on calling a bird.
    - Retric 10y ago
      Except bird is not the scientific name it's Ornithurae which nobody cares about. Planet on the other hand is from Astronomy (asteres planetai), so just as Ornithurae means what scientists agree it means so does Planet. Electron and planet are both in common useage, but nobody gets in a tizzy about it. PS: This is just pure bike-shedding by people who only care about the trivia and don't really use it for anything meaningful.
- DCKing 10y ago
  If you think that the blog's point was to openly discuss the arbitrarity of certain definitions, then you have read another blog than I did. Given the blog's obvious agenda, I find it a bit disingenious to summarize it like you do. The new definition of 'planet' is meant to capture the set of bodies that are the most significant, dominant or prominent bodies in the Solar System. And under the current definition, this is captured perfectly, and will work well in the Solar System for the next billion years at least. While I agree that the definition is not perfect and ultimately arbitrary, our categorization of things should be helpful. Given their vastly different influence on the Solar System, a categorization in which Venus and Jupiter are distinct from Sedna and Ceres is more helpful than one in which they are the same, in my opinion.

by DCKing 10y ago

sxp 10y ago

This is either a clickbait article or a weak April Fools' joke.

waterhouse 10y ago
The date on the Medium article is Mar 21.

jessriedel 10y ago

It's weird someone can can get so worked up that they use the term "outrage" (apparently seriously) for an atronomical re-definition.

runarberg 10y ago

Regardless of the validity of the premise, the conclusion—and the point—of the article is valid. Debating over the definition of planets is silly. It feels as if this is done just so school children can pass astronomy tests by residing the names of all 8 planets. Otherwise there is no point in holding this definition, or any definition for that matter. It is a known problem classifying most natural phenomena is at best difficult—but most likely impossible—to do so under a simple definition. What most naturalists do is to holding a set of common beliefs over what belongs in which category. For example, there is no easy definition of a bird. Rather we have a set of common beliefs over which animals can rightly be called a bird. Worse, the set of “common beliefs” varies depending on field of interests. Some people might talk about viruses as “living” because that servers their purpose (it makes their work easier; it makes more sense) while other wont. I hope that we soon stop this silly debate. Our definition of a planet will not hold for long. The more planets we discover the weaker the current definition will become (this is the authors point). When that happens I bet people will talk about Pluto (and Eris, Sedna, etc.) as a planet just because it matches peoples idea of what a planet is. Just like people talk about viruses as living organisms just because it fits nicely into what we think life is. --- edit: grammar

kevin_thibedeau 10y ago
There are a multitude of objective measures that can be applied to planet classification. In almost all of them, Pluto is an obvious outlier. The controversy hype was manufactured by the press looking for a sensation.
- runarberg 10y ago
  The same can be said about birds. You can say that for an animal to be considered a bird it: a) has to have feathers, b) has to have warm blood, c) cannot have claws on its wings, d) cannot have teeth. But than you find one animals that we can all agree is a bird that has claws on its wings while still a chick (will it grow up to become a bird?). So you use a new definition. Bird are evolutionary descendant some reptiles had contained feathers and warm blood. This will (mostly) hold out until we discover some extinct groups of reptiles that had feathers and warm blood. Note though how vague the latter definition is. It has to be. Because we cannot derive at a solid definition of a bird that encapsulates all animals that we can consent on calling a bird.
  - Retric 10y ago
    Except bird is not the scientific name it's Ornithurae which nobody cares about. Planet on the other hand is from Astronomy (asteres planetai), so just as Ornithurae means what scientists agree it means so does Planet. Electron and planet are both in common useage, but nobody gets in a tizzy about it. PS: This is just pure bike-shedding by people who only care about the trivia and don't really use it for anything meaningful.
DCKing 10y ago
If you think that the blog's point was to openly discuss the arbitrarity of certain definitions, then you have read another blog than I did. Given the blog's obvious agenda, I find it a bit disingenious to summarize it like you do. The new definition of 'planet' is meant to capture the set of bodies that are the most significant, dominant or prominent bodies in the Solar System. And under the current definition, this is captured perfectly, and will work well in the Solar System for the next billion years at least. While I agree that the definition is not perfect and ultimately arbitrary, our categorization of things should be helpful. Given their vastly different influence on the Solar System, a categorization in which Venus and Jupiter are distinct from Sedna and Ceres is more helpful than one in which they are the same, in my opinion.