Pluto Decision Meets with Frustration

fuzzybunny writes "The BBC reports that the IAU's controversial Prague vote on demoting Pluto from planet status was irregular. 'There were 2,700 astronomers in Prague during that 10-day period. But only 10% of them voted this afternoon.'" On a less serious note, lx writes "Nonplussed by Pluto's recent downgrade from Planet Status, Fox News's own John Gibson does an incredible Stephen Colbert impersonation to correct the 'revisionist history' of the IAU's decision. Exemplifying 'truthiness,' from the article: 'Long ago I learned it was a planet and I see no reason to unlearn it. Why should I?' "

Comments

...wait...

[Anonymous Coward]

So wait.. let me get this straight. Fox News is trying to copy a show that is a direct parody of the Fox News network? There's got to be some irony in there somewhere.

Pluto

[WizADSL]

Why are people so frustrated with this? I typically resist change, but I'm ok with this. If the definition of planet has been refined (that's my understanding) and pluto no longer fits the criteria, then this is fine.

Re:Pluto

[DrVomact]

Why? Well, first of all it's a lot of fun to argue about stuff like this--and I never could resist a good argument. It's too bad, though, that the astronomers turned this question into a pissing contest--shows they don't know how to have a proper argument. A vote, for cryin' out loud! Now if you want to see the fur fly with panache, call in the philosophers.

Seriously, there are some interesting astronomical questions that are brought up by this "is Pluto a planet?" debate. When Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto, astronomers were expecting to find another planet, because there were some irregularities in the motions of the known planets that could only be explained by more mass out beyond Neptune. So when Tombaugh spotted Pluto, everyone shouted "hurray", the problem was solved, and we had nine planets. Only it wasn't quite solved--Pluto didn't have enough mass to really account for all the observed perturbations. Well, at least that's what I remember reading about Pluto...feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Eventually, I think astronomers--and normal human beings--will come to a consensus, and I believe that consensus will indeed confirm Pluto's debasement. Like the guy in one of the articles said, Pluto just isn't that big, so if it qualifies for planet-hood, then a lot of other rocks do too. Clearly, that would get too confusing--it was bad enough just having to remember nine planets...think of the children!

One thing that makes this such a productive argument is that it forces us to acknowledge that the solar system is a more complicated--and vastly more interesting--place than we thought. I think that's a good thing...even if it means the last true thing I learned in school has just gone down the tubes.

I'll tell you what, though--while we're cleaning up astronomical nomenclature, let's do something about The Unmentionable Planet--you know the one just this side of Neptune, which was discovered to have rings around it. Ever since that joke went around, no one has been able to say--or even think--the name without dissolving into a fit of hysterical laughter. My personal favorite solution is to Greek-ify the spelling and pronunciation a bit to render it harmless: maybe "Ouranos".

How about this?

[dtfinch]

We keep the new definitions, but still call Pluto a planet, just as an honorary title.

Re:How about this?

[Rancidlunchmeat]

FACTS? If this were actually about facts, there wouldn't be anything to VOTE on, would there?

We got it wrong

[Mwongozi]

Long ago I learned it was a planet and I see no reason to unlearn it. Why should I?

Because we were wrong. It's orbit is incredibly un-circular, it wildly off the plane of the solar system, and it's smaller than the moon! It never belonged in the pigeon-hole we've labelled "planet".

Part of science is accurate classification. We can't label something just because we want to.

Re:We got it wrong

[Abcd1234]

Because we were wrong.

Exactly! It's like saying "I learned the earth is the center of the universe and I see no reason to unlearn it." It's plain and simply factually *wrong*, and people who react this way betray an alarming inability to accept new facts, instead clinging onto their pre-existing notions with near *religious* ferver.

Yes, that last bit was flamebait. ;)

Re:No reason to unlearn it?

[jdray]

The only thing "incredible" about that "Stephen Colbert impersonation" is how bad it was.

Re:No reason to unlearn it?

[IdahoEv]

'Long ago I learned it was a planet and I see no reason to unlearn it. Why should I?' "

Oh yes dear me, because information never changes and people should not EVAR be required to use their brains after their youthful indoctrination.

orly

[sam.thorogood]

Long ago I learned it was a planet and I see no reason to unlearn it. Why should I?

Before five hundred years ago I learned that the Earth was flat and I see no reason to unlearn it. Why should I?

NASA's new mission: to set foot on a planet

[Dr. Zowie]

The exact wording of Resolution 5(a) is:

(1) A "planet"1 is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit.

(2) A "dwarf planet" is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape2 , (c) has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit, and (d) is not a satellite.

There are several problems with (1). In particular:

• Extrasolar planets are no longer "planets" since they don't orbit the Sun.
• Jupiter is not a planet, because it has not cleared the neighborhood around its orbit - it has asteroids at the Trojan points.
• Earth is not a planet, because it has not cleared the neighborhood around its orbit -- there exist Near-Earth asteroids and Earth-crossing asteroids. (One might argue that this is getting worse, what with all the space debris we keep flinging into near-Earth solar orbit).

(2) looks OK, but the IAU folks have taken the (IMHO) insane view that a "dwarf planet" is not a subtype of "planet" at all (contrast "dwarf pine tree" or "dwarf sunflower" or "dwarf hippopotamus", all of which are subtypes of their source nown). That destroys a potential way to finesse the Pluto issue -- by calling it a dwarf planet, they could have let everyone have their semantic cake, and eat it too.

On a different note, another scientist friend of mine just told me his six-year-old daughter burst into tears when she found out Pluto isn't to be considered a planet anymore. :-(

Re:A question of fairness and integrity

[antares256]

I couldn't agree more. The IAU has the authority to make this decision, but if the OP is correct, and only 10% of the IAU voted, that isn't even a quorum.

Two things really bothered me about this decision, and neither of them are the decision that Pluto is not a planet, but have to do with the way the decision was made.

1) When asked about applying this definition to other stars and their potential planets, the committee that proposed this definition said that the definition on the table only applies to our solar system.

2) One of the delegates said, "We would really look like idiots if we came out of this meeting without some type of decision." (I don't know who to attribute this to, but I heard the scientist's voice on NPR).

Another interesting tidbit is that the original defintion, as suggested by the committee, had the unintended consequence of removeing Neptune from the definition of a planet (it hasn't fully cleared its neighborhood, i.e. Pluto), so they added an addendum to the definition.

My thought is the IAU does look like idiots, for doing 1, and making statement 2. All they have done is muddy the waters again. They haven't come up with a definition that will be applicable to all bodies orbiting any star (even though there are bound to be exceptions). The addendum to make Neptune a planet under this new definition again shows that they really didn't think this through like they should have before submitting the definition.

If they were to act more like scientists than media-coverage hungry people (the "we would look like idiots" comment), they might have actually come up with a definition that didn't need an addendum to include a large gas giant, and one that would be applicable to extra-solar planet hunters...

Another interesting tidbit is that most of the scientists in the "Pluto shouldn't be a planet" camp also had competing missions for which they wanted funding that might instead go toward a Pluto mission of some sort.

Never should've been a planet anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

Guys, it's called science, and science revises itself over time to accomodate new data. Gravitational perturbations of Neptune first led astronomers to seek a ninth planet. When Tombaugh found it in 1930 Pluto was thought to be Earth-sized and similarly massive. Over the decades its size and mass kept getting revised downward as new scientific discoveries were made. The perturbations turned out to not exist-- another example of science refining itself.

Now we've discovered UB313, Sedna, Ixion, Quoar and others, and it's clear that Pluto's only the most prominent representative of the Kuiper belt, just as Ceres is the most prominent member of the asteroid belt. The media that are causing this furor are ignorant of the real issues involved and seem merely interested in running stories about Mrs. Johnson's 3rd grade class being upset about Mickey's dog.

Pluto is still there. It's still the same size and mass it always was, and New Horizons is still going to visit it. But it never would be called a planet if it were discovered today.

Re:There is no scientific reason to unlearn

[petermgreen]

The facts of the world here in fact have not changed. Only nomenclature has.
well what has actually happened is that nomenclature has caught up with the facts. The new(ish) fact is that there is a big belt of pluto like objects in similar orbits to pluto. The final straw came when it was discovered that pluto wasn't even the biggest in that belt.

It's also useful in education, because we ask our kids to learn the names of the planets, not every body that orbits the sun. There is really very little useful value in writing new textbooks here.
well you could say there is very little value in teaching our kids the makeup of the solar system at all. After all its not as though any significant number of people leave earth and the only bodies with significant impact on everyday life are the sun and moon.

what we have really discovered here is that pluto was not a one of a kind in a pretty unique orbit but part of a belt of very similar lumps of rock. School textbooks talk about the asteroid belt but not ceres in particular. Similarly they should talk about the kuiper belt but not pluto in particular.