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I've been firmly in the PLUTO IS A PLANET camp my whole life, and the 2006 decision to demote our distant neighbor to planetoid or worse I did not take lightly.
by brianstorms 11y ago
I've been firmly in the PLUTO IS A PLANET camp my whole life, and the 2006 decision to demote our distant neighbor to planetoid or worse I did not take lightly.
But I have to admit, seeing how tiny the malformed rock is, smaller than the United States, smaller than our own Moon, I have to revise my thinking.
But then . . . Pluto has its own moons! Impossible, but there they are. Five known ones!
This is science at its best. Can't wait for the flyby.
- fogleman 11y agoThe center of mass of the Pluto / Charon system lies outside of Pluto. So Pluto is more like the larger body in a binary system.
- gus_massa 11y agoEris is 27% heavier than Pluto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eris_(dwarf_planet) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eris_(dwarf_planet) . Do you want to classify Eris as a planet too?