Comments on: Pluto is a planet

By: wodun

wodun — Wed, 09 May 2018 22:19:36 +0000

you will find us — in the literature and at our conferences — calling it a planet. This usage is not a mistake or a throwback. It is increasingly common in our profession and it is accurate.

This is stupid. Just because moons are more interesting than people used to think they are doesn’t make them planets. Being a moon isn’t an insult.

The scientists studying moons shouldn’t feel like they are lesser and shouldn’t give in to the temptation to overcompensate for their doubt over self worth. Studying moons doesn’t make you less of a scientist, there is no need of the puffery here. Maybe they need comfort goats?

By: Robert Zimmerman

Robert Zimmerman — Wed, 09 May 2018 15:38:22 +0000

In reply to Jack O'Leary. Jack O'Leary: Thank you. Post is fixed.

By: Phill O

Phill O — Wed, 09 May 2018 12:44:59 +0000

I am stuck on the Plutanoid planets term.

By: Jack O'Leary

Jack O'Leary — Wed, 09 May 2018 09:40:56 +0000

It should be “principal investigator” NOT “principle”. /grammar

By: Edward

Edward — Tue, 08 May 2018 23:56:34 +0000

The way that I heard the story, at the time (I was not present at the IAU conference), is that some astronomers noted that the Kuiper Belt was about to be explored and that there could be quite a few planet-sized bodies in there, perhaps a hundred of them the size of the Earth. They panicked, thinking that no grade school student would bother to memorize, say, 110 planet names,* so how could astronomers keep schools teaching planets and their names? Their solution was to redefine “planet” so that only a few astronomical objects fit the definition. Unfortunately, in their panic, they rushed the job and messed up the definition.

Panic, of course, results when you don’t know what else to do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKaQLYPf5hM#t=111
Fortunately, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy recommends “Don’t Panic.” Unfortunately, astronomers do not seem to be Douglas Adams fans.

Now they have made a mess of things, and someone has to clean it up.

* From the USRA planet definition PDF link: “Certainly 110 planets is more than students should be expected to memorize, and indeed they ought not.“

By: Localfluff

Localfluff — Tue, 08 May 2018 21:57:56 +0000

Also, there cannot be more than about ten planets. That was very important for the definition. So a planet isn’t a planet if there are too many other planets. The definition always depends on something else than the properties of the planet itself.

OT: Ted Cruz speaking at the Humans to Mars event:
“The first trillionaire will be made in space!”
https://livestream.com/viewnow/HumanstoMars2018

By: Localfluff

Localfluff — Tue, 08 May 2018 21:46:36 +0000

I was present at that IAU conference, I know how it happened. At the end of the session someone asked:
– Dr. Dr. chairman, what is a planet, actually? I’ve never seen a definition.
– Oh by Lord Euler! Don’t we know what a planet is? And we are supposed to be astronomers. We must get a formal definition now, or else this might escalate to some kind of media scandal that could hurt the IAU’s reputation.

So they defined a planet as the properties of other planets, and things. What is a planet or not depends, not what it actually is, but on where it is and where other stuff is. Also, planets only exist at the Sun, it is indeed a very unique star! Exoplanets are not planets. Also, it has to be round. Vesta was formed round, but later disfigured by a huge asteroid impact, a deplanetizing event.

By: Orion314

Orion314 — Tue, 08 May 2018 21:31:59 +0000

The best way to foul the science & art of Astronomy, (the mother of all science) is to mix politics with it.
Pluto’s demotion to whatever the DemoPlutocratic “scientists’ deemed it to be, was nothing more than free exposure for the so-called scientific left. Pluto payed the price for it.
An easy way to put my argument to test is:
“If Pluto had been discovered by a black Astronomer instead of Clyde Tombaugh, Imagine the outrage of demoting the significance of such a discovery.” They would riot in Berzerkly.
This observation is with all due deference to the self titled “black Carl Sagan” , Neil d Tyson , a man who bragged he single handedly demoted Pluto’s status. Apparently , for no other reason than the left’s blind approval, even though his entire story is nothing more than egyptian cotton weaved from “horse apples’ , with respect to BTB :)
PS
Years ago , when the subject of Pluto’s reclassification came to rise , my first thought was : Why not grandfather in the original 9 planets with the title of Planet , with a capital P ? ,As a bow to antiquity , every planet discovered subsequently, will have a small p , for planet. Hardly brilliant , but certainly practical.