-
The rocks, ice, and gas out there doesn’t give a shit what we think.
-
Arguing that a planet must have cleared its orbit of other major bodies invokes an arbitrary size and location judgement for what constitutes a planets orbital space and what constitutes a major body.
-
The argument that the inclusion of Pluto would require the inclusion of a lot of other planets and that that is obviously bad/wrong is absurd. Why can’t a system have a whole lot of planets?
I propose an unoriginal definition of a planet:
-
Large enough to become spherical under its own mass.
-
Too small to fuse hydrogen, regardless of its presence.
I think we should really consider the term “planet” to be somewhat vague, and use the term “proper planet” when referring to all the things that match my proposed definition. The proposed definition includes things we have other names for and that’s okay; we just use those other names when we need the extra specificity, like moon, rouge planet, dwarf planet, etc.
Well said. This is my take on it too. It’s really the only reasonable approach.
-
The stupidest consequence of the definition is not the classification of Pluto, but that there are only eight planets in the entire universe.
a planet is a celestial body that:
- is in orbit around the Sun
*a sun
No. I copied and pasted that. The definition says ‘the Sun’. There was a proposal to classify ‘exoplanets’ but the IAU never accepted it, and so those large masses orbiting other stars remain undefined.
Are dwarf stars not stars?
No, because they aren’t undergoing hydrogen fusion due to their insufficient mass.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_star
That doesn’t seem to be entirely accurate.
Gas giant planets, ice giant planets, rocky planets, dwarf planets.
I don’t see what the big deal is.
The deal is the weird part where they made a specific point of and big deal out of the new classification not being a type of planet despite having the word planet in the name.
new planet definition is dumb and i don’t subscribe to it. pluto is always a planet as far as im concerned
Then you must accept at least 5 more and up to a couple hundred. Are you prepared?
the more the merrier
Seems to be an appropriate thread for this absolute banger: https://youtu.be/EuRjmzz6qL0
Only USA people are arguing against it be cause of national pride, it’s the “planet” they had discovered. Among astronomers the consensus is established.
What a weird take.
