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.