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Size doesn’t matter
Correct, it’s called planet when it orbits arround the Sun AND has cleaned it’s orbit from asteroids, not the case of Pluto, whose orbit is still full of other objects, some even bigger than Pluto itself.
If it orbits an Planet instead of the Sun, it’s a Moon, even if it is bigger than some other planets.
“All right, Ganymede. You can be a planet, but first you have to clean up your orbit. Start with Jupiter.”
Jupiter has a permanent cloud of asteroids that follow it and neptune crosses the orbit of pluto so neither of those have cleared their orbits so of course they made exceptions so that their contrived definition fits.
Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids sit at Lagrange points. Material found there is not counted in the ‘clearing the orbit’ criteria. They are in stable orbits caused by the mass of the planet in question, not in lieu of a massive enough body.
Well of course that was the exception they had to come up with for their contrived rule. The exception is: “whatever it takes to make pluto not a planet”. Since the vote was agenda fueled and not a scientific discussion.
Once something new is discovered and breaks the rules they will have to modify the contrived rule to keep pluto not a planet.
And what agenda is that? To mine the planet in secret so not to upset the environmentalists?
Yes, that’s how science goes. Simple explanations and definitions often fall apart upon further discovery and require caveats that sometimes even reinforce the intention.
I agree except in this instance the goal was to keep Earth’s classification important. No other scientific objective. Just seemed very geocentric to me.
Pluto is a dwarf planet, which is still a planet.
Also, they absolutely should have just made an exception for Pluto so science teachers everywhere could have used that as a fun teaching point.
Considering it’s in a double tidally locked orbit with its own moon Charon and the point that both rotate around is outside Pluto’s volume I would argue that the Pluto/Charon system is actually a dwarf-binary-planet.
I’d okay with that. As long as it’s still technically a planet. (what? it’s my favorite!)
Everyone loves an underdog
At that point the only really ‘planety’ thing about is is basically that it is spherical.
Its not primarily orbiting the sun, so much as it is the barycenter of itself and charon.
And there are moons that are bigger, and more spherical, and more massive than Pluto.
And while it does have the vaguely heart shaped terrain feature, Mars has a smiley face crater, Saturn has an eternal hexagon on its north and south poles, despite being a gas giant, Jupiter has the spot, Mimas kinda looks like the Death Star, etc.
https://youtu.be/xgFKxFX3IwY I recommend watching this video
Also they shouldn’t have called the category of “things that aren’t planets despite being in some ways planet-like” “dwarf planet,” they should have called them “planetoids.” Star Trek had been referring to small planet-like objects as planetoids for decades, so the work in the popular consciousness had already been done. Dwarf planet not being a planet makes it sound like they’re saying dwarf people don’t count as people, and I don’t care for that at all.
Precedent for an exception would go to Ceres not Pluto.
The text book publishers are always looking for a reason to sell new editions.
You would think this is the case but they specifically decided through a vote that a dwarf planet is NOT a planet but a completely separate type of object. The whole vote was ridiculous and done at the very end of the conference so that only a fraction of the members were there to vote on pluto.
Edit: I’m down voted but every word of what I wrote is true. Dig into it and you will find out the same.
Then YOU come up with a definition of a planet that manages to include Pluto while simultaneously excluding Ceres, Charon, Eris, Cedna, Makemake, and 200+ other objects in the solar system large enough to be spherical, some of which are larger than Pluto
The definition of planet should be what it is, a traditional unscientific category based on history… like constellations. Calling Mercury a planet and Jupiter a planet as though they are similar in almost any way is silly scientifically.
Perhaps leave the traditional planets category alone and create new categories that could pertain to all systems not just ours. Maybe something like terrestrial planets, gas planets, dwarf planets… etc. Categories that won’t have to change any time a new discovery is made.
when it orbits arround the Sun AND has cleaned it’s orbit from asteroid
Jupiter, largest of all dwarf planets, shares its orbit with some i don’t know million asteroids.
I’ve often thought that ‘clearing’ it’s orbit is misleading. I believe the definition ought to be changed to ‘controls’ or ‘governs’ its orbit. This allows for objects in stable L4/L5 locations without inviting the caveats that ‘clearing’ needs.
Its because its a colloquial phrase that more or less the media picked up and ran with.
Actual astronomers and astrophysicists use math to describe what they’re talking about, math that you can find and learn fairly easily on wikipedia.
Lay people tend to just evaluate a phrase for its extremely literal meaning, not realizing that it is at best just pop science jargon, short hand to refer to a pretty well defined and precise concept, that is difficult to summarize without losing specificity.
There are many, many other examples of this kind of thing happening with other phrases or terms used to refer to complex concepts.
That’s what I tell my wife but she won’t listen
Come on guys, laugh
We’re laughing with your wife.
What have I done
Oh honey it’s ok
That’s not what she said.
Size is a factor. But not everything.
Weird how many people seem to think it’s like a competition or something. It’s a descriptive label.
The whole Pluto thing taught us a lot about the psychology of letting go of something taught at a young age. People getting proper frothing at how they shoulda just let Pluto keep it, just to save themselves the extremely minor cognitive dissonance.
When people get upset about pluto, I’ll just tell them if pluto is planet, so is Ceres. Which then results in mindless staring because they never even heard about Ceres…
Yeah. Removing pluto was the more conservative option.
truly it was. still workin on it tho
And Cedna. And Eris. And Makemake. And Haumea. And…
Have you seen the lengths people go to in order to not have to change their world view even a smidge? To not have to correct themselves about anything at all? I’ll give you a hint, literally every right wing party in the world doing well is because weak people can’t change a damn thing about themselves.
“World view” is very fitting here.
Not just the right. The entire Taiwan situation is entirely due to the Chinese being taught at school that Taiwan just is part of China like it’s an immutable fact.
being taught at school that Taiwan just is part of China
What’s the name of Taiwan’s government again?
China 2 Tawainese Boogaloo
Can’t tell if you’re joking or just a dickhead tankie.
Is it dickish to point out even Taiwan calls itself The Republic of China?
Because they consider themselves to be the original China, since their government was formed from the Nationalist (pre-communist) government of China, who were chased out by the Communists.
The situation is NOT like this:
🇨🇳: The island of Taiwan is part of me!
🇹🇼: No, I am an independent nation!It’s like this:
🇨🇳: I am the true China, and the island of Taiwan is part of me!
🇹🇼: No, I am the true China, and the mainland is part of me!Which is why there are some countries that do not recognize the People’s Republic of China (mainland), and instead recognize the Republic of China (Taiwan) as China.
My information from:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retreat_of_the_government_of_the_Republic_of_China_to_Taiwan
https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2016/12/04/2003660529Sounds like tankie nonsense.
Are you sure Taiwan hasn’t been an independent state with nothing to do with China forever, and China just wants to invade because its an evil dictatorship?
Amen.
I really doubt more than .001% actually care if it’s called a planet or not, it’s just a meme to pretend that you care. Like pineapple on pizza.
No one actually cares if you put pineapple on pizza. No one actually cares about Pluto being a planet. But there are many people who see themselves as some sort of white knight defenders of the truth against haters that don’t actually even exist.
I care if you put pineapple on pizza. Please put it on yours. Please. That means less on mine. Not that i dislike it, i just lack the parts to digest it properly.
Pineapple digests you before you digest it!
precisely
I’d agree with you but the definition is arbitrary and is not of Natural Kind. Even worse, instead of making the definition of a planet more clear it just makes the determining what is a planet more difficult.
Honestly, if they just went with defining ‘Major Planets’, ‘Minor Planets’, and asteroids determined by mass and spherical shape, I think everyone would’ve moved on by now.
it just makes the determining what is a planet more difficult.
If this is true, then please tell me what totally non-arbitrary reason there was for Ceres to not be universally considered a planet?
I’m not sure what you mean. It should be a planet by the definition I gave before unless I didn’t convey what I was trying to say correctly. It’s definitely large, heavy, and spherical enough to be a planet in my opinion.
There’s tons of different sized objects in our solar system and it’s distinguishable enough to qualify in this one.
People fighting for Pluto that it should be a planet instead of a dwarf planet
Ceres: 🥺
Context: Ceres is now considered a dwarf planet, and used to be considered just an asteroid, but when it was first discovered it was considered a planet. That was in 1801. There is no objective criteria for what a planet is and isn’t. Like a lot of things in nature, things just exist, and as humans we categorize them. Ceres is round like a planet like Pluto. I’m not saying it should be considered a planet, I think dwarf planet fits them both nicely. As late as the 1950s Ceres was still sometimes considered a planet by some people.
I have a sort spot for it. I love it.
Edit: Because two people have misunderstood me now I’m going to say it more explicitly. I’m fully aware there is a scientific definition for dwarf planets. I’m not saying there isn’t. I’m just saying compared to something else like prime numbers there isn’t an obviously correct way to categorize them and the definition has changed over time. By stating the current definition of planets and/or dwarf planets you’re missing my point. Those definitions change. See here for the history.
I’m fighting for jupiter to also be a dwarf planet because it has not cleared its orbit of a few million asteroids.
You do have a point
All those asteroids are cqptured in Jupiter’s Trojan points, no?
*Lagrange points
it blew my tiny mind when i found out that there are multiple dwarf planets in long solar orbits in our system
they might be small and enjoy solitude but why are we forgetting about them???
and now apparently there’s also a dwarf planet in the inner solar system that nobody talks about??? rude
there’s also a dwarf planet in the inner solar system
It’s arguable about whether it’s in the “Inner Solar System”. Ceres is inside the asteroid belt, and the asteroid belt is the separator between the inner and outer system. It’s like floating in the middle of The Rhine and debating whether you’re in Germany or France
Exactly! It’s right there past Mars! It’s not like it’s some weird thing off in the cold dark past Pluto.
I found it interesting that Warframe, set in the Solar System (+ SciFi/Fantasy stuff) features not only the various planets (including Pluto), but also moons (Deimos, Phobos, Europa) and dwarf planets (Ceres, Eris, Sedna) and even an asteroid (though the original name isn’t known, if it ever had one). Not relevant to the topic, just came to mind.
There is no objective criteria for what a planet is and isn’t.
There is, though, or rather there should be another one.
The official definition says
But I also said,
Like a lot of things in nature, things just exist, and as humans we categorize them.
Git Gud Ganymede, break out of Jupiter’s orbit
Gas giants aren’t planets: they’re just clouds, man.
The sun is just a particularly angry cloud.
Failed stars
More like a failure as a sun. We should all point and laugh at Jupiter.
New York City born and raised.
I distinctly remember a third grade class when the teacher told us that the population nation of Sweden was smaller than the population of New York City.
Nobody does indignation like a 9 year old.
If you’re only counting New York City proper this is true, but the New York City metro area vastly out populates the entire nation of Sweden. (20M vs 10M)
iirc it was NYC 8 mllion and Sweden 7.5 million. No idea what her source was.
Meanwhile Jupiter-san gets all the titles and meteor hugs
I mean jupiter-chan is humongous:
poor Flat(-chested) Earth…
Wait, YOU’RE the artist? This is incredible
no, just posting a old meme that has way to many itterations xD (and i know to much of it xD)
search for earth-chan, moon-chan, black-hole-chan etc. and rejoice
hahaha oh my god
THIS is the pluto chan I know:
WHEN I FLEX I FEEL MY BEST
I don’t like the format generally, so I never thought I’d appreciate a kawaii-anime-style narration with interesting facts about planets, yet here we are. Where’d you get them from? Or are you drawing them yourself?
it’s a 8-10 year old meme, everything started with earth-chan, but then people illustrated the whole solar system*, the BSApricot illustrations are my favorites from the format
*and other things like black-hole-chan, universe-chan or principal milkyway
Mercury used to be bigger than it currently is. The only thing that’s survived the wrath of The Sun is its core.
Mercury is hard core.
please don’t remind me, 1991 was only so long ago.
“Moon” is more an indictment of the mediocre fusion product of the mass being orbited than any statement about the orbiter.
Damn, shots fired!
Don’t take Mercury for granted.
This is how we lost Pluto to the “well ackchually” gang.
The Moon being classified as a Moon despite qualifying as a binary planet. :(
The Earth/Moon system does not qualify as a binary planet because it does not meet the L4/L5 instability threshold. In a system of two orbiting masses, the larger needs to have at least 25x the mass of the smaller for the system to have stable L4/L5 points. Earth is ~80x more massive than the Moon, allowing the system to have stable L4/L5 points, and is therefore a satellite system.
Quick diagram for anyone wondering
L4 and L5 get unstable if the masses orbiting each other are too similar
It lacks the je ne se quois of a binary planet. It just doesn’t have the right atmosphere for it, you know.
The barycenter between the Earth and Luna is well within the surface of the Earth. There is no definition where it counts as a binary system
Can’t have cleared your orbit around the sun if you don’t orbit the sun.
Tell me who you walk with…
And now I know what my endevouros release is named ofter.
