I, for one, welcome our new dwarf planet overlords

[dvandom]

I'm with demiurgent. No outrage at all, here.

Before we had nine planets that were only planets under the "I don't know what (insert thing) is, but I know it when I see it" definition. Now we have a pretty clear definition of what a planet in general is (big enough to be more or less spherical, the focus point of its orbit is in the Sun, and if it also orbits something else, the focus of that orbit is not inside either body), and a split between "classical" and "dwarf" planets. This split is a little fuzzier, but classical planets have removed most of the crud from their own orbits, either flinging them away, absorbing them, or herding them into trojan points. What qualifies as "most" is a bit hazy, but it's clear Pluto and Ceres ain't done it, while Earth or Mercury have. Elliptical orbits crossing Earth orbit don't count, just stuff that would follow more or less the same path.

Yeah, the news will go on about how Pluto has been demoted, or even falsely say it's not a planet anymore. I've even seen what look like significant misinterpretations of the definitions in the news. But once they move on to something else, no one will really care except us geeks...and frankly, we geeks like clearer definitions and classifications anyway, once the initial "we fear change" effect passes.

Besides, the Mi-Go don't give a rat's ass what we classify their outpost on Yuggoth as.

Comments

[foomf.livejournal.com]

Actually, without a much better definition of 'clearing', Jupiter isn't a planet, as it _attracts_ junk into its orbit.
Nor am I convinced that our very own planet has completely cleared its orbit.

Dwarf Planet as a definition just begs the question, and marking something off the list just for being a satellite is also pretty bogus.

I think part of the problem is that they have to deal with the superstitious underbelly of their analysis - what will the ASTROLOGERS say?

[dvandom.livejournal.com]

Oh, like any two astrologers completely agree anyway. :) This'll just give 'em more grist for advertising. "More scientific!'' "More traditional!" "We never counted Pluto anyway, just the ones the Ancients knew!" Etc.

[foomf.livejournal.com]

Welllll... they did start counting it, but there were discussions about it, like "It isn't really working like it should."

Given that there is a formal, programmable science to the creation of a star chart, even though the interpretation is rather more intuitive, the addition of a bunch more Plutons would be interesting. What happens, then, depends on how the 'influences' of the Plutons are categorized; what their semantic elements are, in the associative engine that drives the outcome of the chart.

[z4nd4r.livejournal.com]

I just added Demi as a friend because of his posts on "Who Wants to be a Superhero?"

[gary-williams.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I understand why so many people are polarized on the issue of Pluto being an planet or not, since any distinction is going to be arbitrary.

If Mercury and Jupiter can be so different and yet both be called "planets", then the fact that a heavenly body is declared a "planet" doesn't really convey any useful information anyway, besides it being "a very large, roughly spherical mass, most likely orbiting an even larger, roughly spherical mass".

At least "asteroid" and "comet" have more clear-cut definitions that most people can agree to...

[mib24601.livejournal.com]

What's bothering me is that the people who seem to be putting up the biggest fight are people who don't seem to understand the science. For the most part, astronomers I know with are either cool with it (I like it, I've been arguing this for years) or at least understand the science behind the argument but when I talk to someone who doesn't have a science background or the best understanding of astronomy, they get angry about how "a random group of astronomers is Europe can change the definition arbitrarily" (someone actually said this to me).