NASA Scientists Propose New Definition of Planets, and Pluto Could Soon Be Back (sciencealert.com)

Rei writes: After several years of publicly complaining about the "bullshit" decision at the IAU redefining what comprises a planet, New Horizons program head Alan Stern and fellow planetary geologists have put forth a new definition which they seek to make official, basing planethood on hydrostatic equilibrium. Under this definition, in addition to Ceres, Pluto and other Kuiper Belt objects, large moons like Titan and Europa, as well as our own moon, would also become planets; "planet" would be a physical term, while "moon" would be an orbital term, and hence one can have a planetary moon, as well as planets that orbit other stars or no star at all (both prohibited under the current definition). The paper points out that planetary geologists already refer to such bodies as planets, citing examples such as a paper about Titan: "A planet-wide detached haze layer occurs between 300-350 km above the surface; the visible limb of the planet, where the vertical haze optical depth is 0.1, is about 220 km above the surface."

Comments

Re:Wow

[amicusNYCL]

The concept of a "planet" has been around for millennia, and the moon (and later Jupiter's Galilean moons) have never been considered planets.

Right, and if there's one thing I know, it's that the things that people thought millennia ago should never ever be challenged, ever. Tradition is sacrosanct and if they thought it was true 2,000 years ago, then damnit it's still true today. This is why everyone still prays to Zeus up there on Mt. Olympus, and why we always will. It's also why I know that the heliocentric model is bullshit, because for millennia we knew that the sun goes around the Earth. It's just common sense.

I also know that the so-called "theory" about micro-organisms is bullshit, they don't exist. If they did, we would have known about them millennia ago. Everyone knows that if you make a hole in a brick, put some sweet basil in it, cover that brick with another brick, and leave the bricks out in the sun, then that basil is going to transform into scorpions. Everyone knows that. It's how the world works.

Oh, what's that, you don't want scorpions, you want mice? Fine, have it your way. Take a dirty shirt and stuff it into a vessel containing a little corn. The ferment proceeding from the dirty shirt will mix with the odor from the corn, and in about three weeks it will transmute the grain to full-grown mice of both sexes. Boom, now you can feed your snake.

I don't want to know how you got that snake though, those things are just unnatural.