Pluto got screwed
- Thread starter Admiral Buzzkill
- Start date
Still, the only way you could keep Pluto is if you decide the definition of a planet is anything pluto-sized or larger.
Then any further large Kuiper Belt objects with satellites would have to be classified as planets too. If the current estimates about the Kuiper Belt are correct, we'd end up with dozens of planets.
Saquist
Commodore
As far as I'm concerned Pluto is a planet.
We should classify them primarily by where they are and composition.
Eris is not a planet, it's in a debris field of the same material it's made of.
Pluto is not made of Volatile Ices is Rock covered by ices and there for not truly part of the Kuiper belt.
I thought that would be obvious and any hydrostatic formed spheroid rock we find in the Kuiper belt with relatively non coplanar orbits like the rest of the planets. That's within an inclination of 20 degrees.
So that's 3 different parameters for a planet
Composition
Location in relation to composition
and Orbits not exceeding 20 degrees incline or eccentricities that are Near Planet crossing...
Pluto fits none of those parameters.
That was easy...why can't scientist figure that out?
We should classify them primarily by where they are and composition.
Eris is not a planet, it's in a debris field of the same material it's made of.
Pluto is not made of Volatile Ices is Rock covered by ices and there for not truly part of the Kuiper belt.
I thought that would be obvious and any hydrostatic formed spheroid rock we find in the Kuiper belt with relatively non coplanar orbits like the rest of the planets. That's within an inclination of 20 degrees.
So that's 3 different parameters for a planet
Composition
Location in relation to composition
and Orbits not exceeding 20 degrees incline or eccentricities that are Near Planet crossing...
Pluto fits none of those parameters.
That was easy...why can't scientist figure that out?
The IAU planet criteria reads:
- A planet is any object in orbit around the Sun with a diameter greater than 2000 km.
- A planet is any object in orbit around the Sun whose shape is stable due to its own gravity.
- A planet is any object in orbit around the Sun that is dominant in its immediate neighbourhood.
From a zen POV the whole Pluto thing is all quite funny.
We get very wrapped up in conventional knowledge, sometimes. We can all agree to call Pluto a planet or call it "Floyd" and nothing will be true that isn't true without regard to classification.
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAZQ0qX5iR0[/yt]
We get very wrapped up in conventional knowledge, sometimes. We can all agree to call Pluto a planet or call it "Floyd" and nothing will be true that isn't true without regard to classification.
[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAZQ0qX5iR0[/yt]
I'm sure Pluto is flattered. On planet Earth, on the other hand, nobody really cares.
You tell us as soon as you complete your PhD in astrophysics.
The fact is, by astronomers' standards, Pluto is far more interesting as a dwarf planet and Kuiper Belt object than it ever was as a planet. As a planet, it was the last and least, little more than a footnote. Astronomers were always uncomfortable calling it a planet, because it was so different from the inner eight, but they didn't have a better label for it. Now they do. It's not the odd one out of the planet family anymore, but the archetype for a whole new family of objects which is where all the excitement is in Solar system studies today. So redesignating Pluto is not a "demotion." It's actually the exact opposite. It heralds a step forward in our understanding of and attention to objects like Pluto.
Besides, even if Eris is infinitesimally smaller than Pluto, we've still only discovered a tiny fraction of the trans-Neptunian objects out there, and the odds are very good that we will find ones that are decidedly bigger than Pluto and Eris, maybe even rivalling Mars or Earth in size. It is no longer possible to conclude that there are nine planets. If Pluto is a planet, then the Solar System contains hundreds or thousands of planets. If Pluto is a dwarf planet, then the Solar System contains eight inner planets, an unknown number of outer planets, and hundreds or thousands of dwarf planets. Which is really just as fascinating either way, regardless of the triviality of which label you put on Pluto. No matter what you call these bodies, they're a whole new class of astronomical objects that are immensely worthy of study. That's what we should be getting excited about. That's where our attention should be. Not on what label we put on one particular trans-Neptunian worldlet, but on what we can learn about the entire class of objects it belongs to.
Nostalgia has little value in science. Abandoning an old, comfortable notion in favor of something new is not a thing to be feared or resisted, but a thing to be embraced avidly, because it's a sign that a whole new avenue of discovery and understanding is opening up.
Besides, even if Eris is infinitesimally smaller than Pluto, we've still only discovered a tiny fraction of the trans-Neptunian objects out there, and the odds are very good that we will find ones that are decidedly bigger than Pluto and Eris, maybe even rivalling Mars or Earth in size. It is no longer possible to conclude that there are nine planets. If Pluto is a planet, then the Solar System contains hundreds or thousands of planets. If Pluto is a dwarf planet, then the Solar System contains eight inner planets, an unknown number of outer planets, and hundreds or thousands of dwarf planets. Which is really just as fascinating either way, regardless of the triviality of which label you put on Pluto. No matter what you call these bodies, they're a whole new class of astronomical objects that are immensely worthy of study. That's what we should be getting excited about. That's where our attention should be. Not on what label we put on one particular trans-Neptunian worldlet, but on what we can learn about the entire class of objects it belongs to.
Nostalgia has little value in science. Abandoning an old, comfortable notion in favor of something new is not a thing to be feared or resisted, but a thing to be embraced avidly, because it's a sign that a whole new avenue of discovery and understanding is opening up.
Saquist
Commodore
I'm saying that it should be classified by composition.
Planet made of Ice should comets for a particular ratio.
They clear ones local space is idiotic for classification. We may find something a heck of a lot bigger out there in the Oort cloud and with all the disorderly orbits and debris out there with the comments it could never sweep it all up. The only reason our area is clear is because of the suns ignition and the other planets sweeping up...
But the sun's gravitational influence goes much further than the 9 planets we have. At these distances formed planets could be multiples of Pluto Orbit Diameters away from each other.
The only parameters that makes sense is composition, size, location, and orbit.
Composition because Gas and Rock's are aside from ice which are comets.
Location because a object of the same composition in a debris field will frequently be acted upon the surrounding matter and may eventually produce an unstable orbit.
Orbit inclination and eccentricities closer to the Solar plane signify community formation and stability since solar system formed.
I'm sure Pluto is flattered. On planet Earth, on the other hand, nobody really cares.
You tell us as soon as you complete your PhD in astrophysics.
Those guys make things more complicated than it has to be.
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Pluto left the planets behind so it could focus on its movie career.
J
Jetfire
Guest
Is it really possible for something as big as Mars or Earth to be out that far and we not know about it?
This. In astronomy classes, we knew this from way back: it was just a matter of time before it would be extended to formal classification. Because, let's remind it here, classification means nothing except for our ease of use. For its own characteristics, Pluto is better classified as a dwarf planet (even if I think the label is unfortunate) than as a full planet. I really can't understand why some people feel butthurt about it, except for a knee-jerk reaction against "ivory tower academicians" who dared to change a classification that was created by, oh wait, older ivory tower academicians. It's just too silly.
"Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven." Very appropriate to Pluto, too.
It's a tenable position, but not the solution to everything you think it is. Rocky planets are, well, rocks. Gas giants are essentially balls of hydrogen: composition-wise, they are more alike stars than other planets. Ice giants have a very hight percentage of water, which would make them comets in your idea. As you see, it's not easy to find a compromise between competing tugs for completeness and accuracy.
Then we'll change the definition again. It's not the end of the world. What's up with this resistance to change? This is science, people, not dogma: change is intrinsic to the scientific method. Leaps are made by improving the theory, or discarding it altogether for a better one. We should always strive for the theory that better fit with current data, without letting nostalgia come in the way of accuracy.
This is exactly as complicated as it needs to be given the current data. If you think you can do a better job, by all means, propose it to the science community and let's talk about it.Those guys make things more complicated than it has to be.You tell us as soon as you complete your PhD in astrophysics.
But you see, VOY: "Sacred Ground" would have us believe that science and religion are basically the same
J
Jetfire
Guest
I think it would be kinda spooky to find a planet the size of the Earth out that far with like a moon and atmosphere. 
Actually, we seem to care terribly what we call things. The fact that our classifications are signifiers and don't actually affect reality at all is of considerably less interest - most people are seemingly unaware of that and resist even accepting it.
Absolutely. We've only charted something like 2 percent of the Kuiper Belt, and only a smattering of scattered-disk objects from farther out. And the Oort Cloud is so far out that we have yet to directly observe any member of it, except possibly Sedna. We're talking about objects that are much, much farther away than any of the eight known planets. There's a huge, huge volume of space to search, and it's very dark out there, so it will take a whole lot of careful looking to find what's out there.
Right. There's no sense in being nostalgic for something that was a bad idea in the first place.
And I don't think there's anything wrong with the label "dwarf planet." If we can have dwarf stars and dwarf galaxies, why not dwarf planets? The only problem with it is the bizarre and self-contradictory assertion that a dwarf planet is not a planet at all. A dwarf star is still a star, and a dwarf galaxy is still a galaxy. I say we should just consider dwarf planets to be a particular subset of planets, just as giant planets are.
Exactly. Change is good, because it means we understand more than we did before.
Heck, it's not even like this hasn't happened before. Ceres and the other large Main Belt asteroids were labeled "planets" for over 60 years before it was realized that they were too small and that "asteroid" was a better label. And that change was so completely accepted that now, hardly anybody knows that Ceres was ever considered a planet. So it's nothing to get hot and bothered about. It's just an adaptation of our labels to reflect our increasing knowledge.
(For that matter, the label "Main Belt" for the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter is obsolete too, since we now know that it's probably a lot sparser than the Kuiper Belt. For that matter, I've heard it suggested that the Trojan asteroids at Jupiter's Lagrange points may collectively outnumber or outmass those in the "Main" Belt. In the future, we'll probably call it something like "the Inner Belt" or "the Cis-Jovian Belt.")
I think it would be kinda spooky to find a planet the size of the Earth out that far with like a moon and atmosphere.
Well, obviously an object that far out from the Sun would be extremely cold and would not be at all Earthlike in anything other than size. It certainly could have one or more satellites; many asteroids and TNOs do. Heck, there's so much more clutter out there than there is here in the inner system that finding moons around large TNOs would not be remotely surprising.
As for atmosphere, it is believed that Pluto does occasionally have a tenuous atmosphere of nitrogen, methane, and carbon monoxide. Meanwhile, Eris is bright enough in color that it's believed its surface is covered in methane frost, suggesting that it occasionally has a thin atmosphere of sublimated methane which forms when it gets close enough to the Sun. There are lots of different kinds of atmosphere which, again, are nothing like the atmosphere we have on Earth.
