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I still think he did it because he wanted to have his name on something significant. He’s a science communicator, not a researcher, and he’s not going to be ma
by naikrovek 1y ago
I still think he did it because he wanted to have his name on something significant. He’s a science communicator, not a researcher, and he’s not going to be making any discoveries. So he’s gotta change something that already exists to have his name on something that everyone knows. He had the power to change its status, so he did. I think that’s all it was. I hope I’m wrong but I’ve never heard a really GOOD reason to undo something that was so commonly known and taught. The definition for “planet” could change and Pluto could have been left alone, grandfathered in, in a way. There’s a reason it was discovered first. It’s huge compared to other dwarf planets.
There’s no reason that Pluto couldn’t have remained a proper planet. It’s big enough to be round and its largest moon is big enough to be round. Mars doesn’t have any round moons. Mars is still a planet.
- XorNot 1y agoIsn't that kind of the issue though? Pluto's moon isn't just round it's about half the size of Pluto itself such that the Pluto-Charon system orbits around a point in space between the two bodies.
- naikrovek 1y agoJupiter and the sun orbit a barycenter, too. Jupiter is a planet.
- XorNot 1y agoAnd the sun is a star. The point is the category exists to be useful: if Pluto is a planet then a ton of other stuff is technically a planet.
- naikrovek 1y agoand in cases where the star is binary with a huge rocky planet? what are the large satellites in that star system? are they planets of the star, or moons of the huge rocky planet?
- calmbell 1y agoEris is essentially the same size as Pluto and has a larger mass.
- naikrovek 1y agoThen ADD Eros. Don’t remove Pluto.
- p_j_w 1y agoWhy?
- naikrovek 1y ago> Why? Why remove Pluto? The definition of a Planet could be whatever we want. It could be "these named entities are planets, other things are not planets" if we wanted. That makes a hell of a lot more sense to me than anything else, because eventually we are going to find planets which really blur the boundaries we have currently. Until we observe the entire universe, any set of rules we come up with are going to appear to be wrong in some situations.
- p_j_w 1y ago"It's not perfect so we should just do it arbitrarily instead" is a pretty silly scientific proposition.
- kuschku 1y agoCongrats, the solar system would then contain these planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Pallas, Juno, Vesta, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Eris, Makemake (Plus some more).
- jajko 1y agoSo what? Is 10 some mental limit of names for most population? If I can memorize 8 I can handle 12 or 15, or neither. Making up sub-categories is such a typical bureaucrat's approach to problems. Why should giant planets be in same category as normal ones? Why mixing ringed with non-ringed? Why mixing moonless with moon-enabled? Gas/liquid ones and solids? I could go on for a long time.
- xp84 1y ago> The definition for “planet” could change and Pluto could have been left alone, grandfathered in, in a way This doesn't sound like a science way of doing things. The definition of planet would have to be literally changed to add "Or has to have been discovered before 19XX" in order to keep Pluto without becoming an unbounded set. If you're annoyed at all the pedants correcting kids or anyone else talking about the nine planets, I'd take it up with them for uselessly debating such a fine distinction, like a chemist arguing about the word "Sodium" on a Nutrition Facts label. I would argue the colloquial definition has indeed been changed in the above way, in that most people would say that what Mars, Venus, and Pluto have in common is they're all planets, and only a few would remember the odd factoid that the dwarf planet designation was created. It's okay for the colloquial definition to be different than the scientific one. There isn't any use case where that will harm anyone. It's not like we're chartering flights to "All Planets" where space tourists are going to be ripped off, limited to 8 planets by the technicality and missing out.
- naikrovek 1y agoYou’re probably right, but I still think there’s room for things like this. What’s a “moon” versus a “planet”? Earth is a moon of Sol, is it not? Why is having a lot of planets a problem in the first place? Why do we have to restrict the definition at all? If 2-3 stars are at the center of a star system, are the planets in that star system planets, or something else? What if they’re small? This whole scene is ripe for people who want to put their stamp of opinion on something to go nuts arbitrarily.
- rantallion 1y ago> What’s a “moon” versus a “planet”? Earth is a moon of Sol, is it not? Planets orbit stars. Moons orbit planets. That's a clear and easy distinction. Planet vs dwarf planet isn't so clear to most.
- amanaplanacanal 1y agoDon't planets and moons both orbit their center of mass? The distinction only seems to make sense if the masses of the two bodies are far apart. If they have similar mass, which is the moon and which the planet?
- dandelany 1y agoHe didn't "do it", he was one voice among many astronomers who have been calling for a reclassification for years, the IAU voted and made the decision. It's a little silly calling him out for "doing it" for ego reasons when you are the one implicitly giving him credit for it... He didn't write the definition, he didn't chair the committee, he wasn't even on the committee. All he did was leave it off the list of planets at the Hayden Planetarium, where he was director.
- simondotau 1y agoStop agonising over metadata. Pluto is still there and it’s not going anywhere.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]