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."

Comments

plutoid... I like it

[religious freak]

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.

Plus, plutoid has a good ring to it.

Re:plutoid... I like it

[kjots]

The current definition of 'planet' is specifically restricted to describing objects within our solar system. Your latter two points are thus irrelevant and your first does not carry enough weight on it's own to be convincing. Hence your argument is refuted.

Once we have a better understanding of the dynamics of other star systems, we can think about a more inclusive definition. For now, we shouldn't worry about them because, as you said, observation is difficult and any conclusions we make now are subject to change.

In our own star system, the only system we can observe directly and thus the only system we can have any real knowledge of, Pluto is not, and never was, a planet. Get over it.

Why can't they just leave shit alone?

[Jane Q. Public]

Two years ago, I knew how many "planets" our solar system contained. Then a change was made... then changed again... now another. I do not even know the total any more.

Re:Why can't they just leave shit alone?

[wylderide]

That's the beauty of this new system: Dwarf planets don't count towards the overall total. So it doesn't matter if Sedna, Orcus, Santa, Ixion, Quaoar and so on turn out to be dwarf planets, the number of planets will still be eight. So you won't have to learn anything new.

Re:Why can't they just leave shit alone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Eventually it became clear that Pluto had to be a Kuiper Belt Object. As long as it was the only big one, that wasn't much of a problem, but eventually, astronomers discovered KBOs that were as big as or even bigger than Pluto, and a choice had to be made. Leaving Pluto a planet while denying that status to other large KBOs would be silly and unscientific, so either all large KBOs would become planets, resulting in dozens or hundreds of extra planets in our solar system, most of which would share similar irregular orbits, or accept that KBOs are different from regular planets, and give them their own class.

Right if you accept Pluto as a planet it would be inconsistent to not accept similar KPO's (and non KPO's like ceres) as planets - we will set aside for now the idea that "consistent" implies "scientific".

However the argument you were responding to did not appear to make any complaint about having more planets or less planets just the idea of changing the definition being dogmatic.

So accepting the idea that having a consistent definition of planet is a "good thing" scientifically speaking. You have neither justified the necessity of changing the definition nor addressed to the posters argument.

Nice coincidence...

[Max Littlemore]

...that the name for their creation deity as written is automatically read by English speakers as make make. (even though it's pronounced makimaki)

Re:Nice coincidence...

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Wow, Makemake a creation deity? That explains why reading Rongorongo is so hard - it is a Polynesian dialect of Perl!

I think it's stupid.

[pavon]

The definition has no scientific usefullness. I have no problem with creating taxonomies purely for local use, but they should at least tell you something about the objects you are classifying. Plutinos, cubiwanos, twotinos, are all usefull categorizations of objects by their orbits in the Kuiper belt, which is likely correlated to their orgins. Dwarf planet is a usefull categorization of things bigger than an asteroid, but smaller than a planet.

Plutinoid is just stupid - all the dwarf planets except Ceres. Yes, I know that Ceres has different orgins and makeup than the large KBOs, but there is an awful lot of variation between those as well. If we wanted a more specific definition than dwarf planet then we should have waited until we knew more about them so we could make one that has some meaning.

Depends.

[jd]

Depends on what you mean by similar, for a start. I would not define a planet according to where it happens to be in the solar system, but rather according to composition, structure and mass, as these are things which we know for a fact to distinguish planets from asteroids (eg: asteroids have no core) and planets from comets (eg: comets have multiple cores). I would define a new class for objects for which insufficient data existed to produce a firm classification, but that is it.

Why does it matter? Well, think back a few days to the recent news on the DNA analysis of birds. Turns out, the definition based on appearances is completely wrong. What was it, kestrels are genetically closer to hummingbirds than any other bird of prey? And the DNA variation between any two lineages within a species has next to zero correspondence to morphology. In other words, looking at something from the outside tells you bugger all. So, naturally, looking at the outside of an object orbiting the sun is the perfect way to tell what it is. It's only a method every other discipline has now ruled to be faulty, after all.

Except these have no DNA

[Moraelin]

Except:

1. Even for birds, there are classifications which are useful even if they don't reflect the DNA. E.g., a "bird of prey" or "flightless bird" are still useful categories, no matter to whom the individual species are related.

Basically a category is just a way to say "all these have property X", no matter what X is or in what other categories they also belong. Grouping them by DNA is just _one_ of the many possible groupings. It's useful, no doubt, but it's not the only useful one. It doesn't make all others faulty. No, even the ones based on looking from the outside. Sorry.

I fail to see why the same can't apply to planets. We already have such categories as being in the right band to have liquid water too, for example. It tells you bugger all about its interior, but it does tell you that the exterior _could_ support Earth-like life. It's a useful category. Even if it's based on where it happens to be.

2. These have no DNA so to speak. They're chunks of rock and ice.

And a lot of other stuff is pretty much based on how big they are and where they are. E.g., whether it has one core or no core or multiple cores, is pretty much just an issue of how big it is. If gravity was high enough, it pulled the heavy stuff towards the centre. If not, not.

Re:Me too...

[pushing-robot]

Nothing more unusual than a human keeping a chimpanzee as a pet.

Cartoon relationships become easier when you assume that bipedal, clothes-wearing, english-speaking characters are a different "species" than their feral cousins.