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Makemake Becomes the Newest Dwarf Planet
Kligat writes "The Kuiper belt object formerly known as (136472) 2005 FY9 has been rechristened Makemake and classified as a dwarf planet and plutoid by the International Astronomical Union, according to the United States Geological Survey. The reclassification occurs just a month after the latter category was created. The object was referred to by the team of discoverers by the codename Easterbunny, and the name Makemake comes from the creation deity of Easter Island, in accordance with IAU rules on naming Kuiper belt objects."
I agree. Even if it was decided to keep Pluto as a 'planet', we would still have to come up with a new name for the eight large objects that orbit our Sun in a manner unlike anything else in the solar system (specifically, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune).
There is little room for sentiment in science. Things are what they are, and if it is discovered that something is being called something it shouldn't be, it has to be changed. Some people just don't get that.
The good news is that in this case, it isn't likely to happen again. Apart from the distinction between terrestrial and gaseous, the definition for planet seems pretty solid (I do expect the term 'exoplanet' to be absorbed into the definition of planet in the long term, though. Either that or we'll be extinct and it won't matter what anything is called anymore :-).
I've got to say, I think the compromise struck is a pretty good one. Pluto being a planet with similar objects not being a planet was not really scientific.
I don't really care whether there are 8 or 150 planets in the Solar System. The current compromise is not scientific. Here are the problems: a) the definition doesn't define a crucial term, b) it doesn't apply to other star systems, and c) any dynamics-based definition of planet cannot extend easily to other star systems (observation is difficult, systems can easily have different dynamics structure).
If astronomers couldn't change the number of planets as new information became available, then astronomy would be dogma instead of a science. To me the pluto demotion has been a great illustration of science at work. Educators should be using it as an example of the difference between science and dogma. Mistake made, mistake corrected.
Our observations of the Solar System and of the bodies orbiting other suns, if we are to be quite strict about it, would lead to the following three classes.
1: Stars
2: Gas Giants
3: Rubble
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
There is no particular scientific benefit in calling something either a planetoid or a dwarf planet. It's all a matter of opinion it seems to me. So I understand the annoyance.
Show a man some news, distract him for an hour. Show a man some mod points, distract him for the rest of his life.
There is no "mistake" to be made in choosing between two essentially arbitrary definitions which have no basis in external reality. Nothing has changed about Pluto. Nothing of substance has changed of our understanding of Pluto. (It is not like our understanding of biology, where new DNA evidence comes to light and two organisms we had previously assumed to be related becaused they looked similar turn out to have no recent common ancestry.)
The only thing which has changed is our arbitrary definitions.
There is a great hue and cry that one way to arbitrarily define things is not merely customary but that it is Correct and that all other forms are Unscientific. That, my friend, is dogma in its purest form.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Goofy was a dog.
Pluto was a dog.
Goofy was Mickey's friend.
Pluto was Mickey's pet.
Does anyone else see anything unusual about that little triangle?
Nobody said make couldn't exist before you make make.
You're very clever, young man, very clever, but it's turtles all the way down