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'Yes, Pluto Is a Planet' (sfgate.com)
schwit1 quotes a Washington Post perspective piece by the authors of a new book about Pluto:
The process for redefining planet was deeply flawed and widely criticized even by those who accepted the outcome. At the 2006 IAU conference, which was held in Prague, the few scientists remaining at the very end of the week-long meeting (less than 4 percent of the world's astronomers and even a smaller percentage of the world's planetary scientists) ratified a hastily drawn definition that contains obvious flaws. For one thing, it defines a planet as an object orbiting around our sun -- thereby disqualifying the planets around other stars, ignoring the exoplanet revolution, and decreeing that essentially all the planets in the universe are not, in fact, planets.
Even within our solar system, the IAU scientists defined "planet" in a strange way, declaring that if an orbiting world has "cleared its zone," or thrown its weight around enough to eject all other nearby objects, it is a planet. Otherwise it is not. This criterion is imprecise and leaves many borderline cases, but what's worse is that they chose a definition that discounts the actual physical properties of a potential planet, electing instead to define "planet" in terms of the other objects that are -- or are not -- orbiting nearby. This leads to many bizarre and absurd conclusions. For example, it would mean that Earth was not a planet for its first 500 million years of history, because it orbited among a swarm of debris until that time, and also that if you took Earth today and moved it somewhere else, say out to the asteroid belt, it would cease being a planet.
To add insult to injury, they amended their convoluted definition with the vindictive and linguistically paradoxical statement that "a dwarf planet is not a planet." This seemingly served no purpose but to satisfy those motivated by a desire -- for whatever reason -- to ensure that Pluto was "demoted" by the new definition. By and large, astronomers ignore the new definition of "planet" every time they discuss all of the exciting discoveries of planets orbiting other stars.
Even within our solar system, the IAU scientists defined "planet" in a strange way, declaring that if an orbiting world has "cleared its zone," or thrown its weight around enough to eject all other nearby objects, it is a planet. Otherwise it is not. This criterion is imprecise and leaves many borderline cases, but what's worse is that they chose a definition that discounts the actual physical properties of a potential planet, electing instead to define "planet" in terms of the other objects that are -- or are not -- orbiting nearby. This leads to many bizarre and absurd conclusions. For example, it would mean that Earth was not a planet for its first 500 million years of history, because it orbited among a swarm of debris until that time, and also that if you took Earth today and moved it somewhere else, say out to the asteroid belt, it would cease being a planet.
To add insult to injury, they amended their convoluted definition with the vindictive and linguistically paradoxical statement that "a dwarf planet is not a planet." This seemingly served no purpose but to satisfy those motivated by a desire -- for whatever reason -- to ensure that Pluto was "demoted" by the new definition. By and large, astronomers ignore the new definition of "planet" every time they discuss all of the exciting discoveries of planets orbiting other stars.
If Pluto is a planet, aren't a large number of other bodies in the solar system also planets?
No. Pluto's orbit only seems to cross Neptune's in a 2-D representation. If you look at a 3-D version, you'll see that Pluto's is highly inclined to the Ecliptic, and the closest the two planets get to each other is about 8 AU, or 744,000,000 miles.
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I looked this up to see what it was like and wow it is way off from all the others. https://theskylive.com/3dsolar...
-]Phreak Out[-
Hades is the Greek god of the underworld. Pluto is the Roman version.
And in old greek, Plouton is one of Hades' epithets - i.e.: adjectives often used together with His name to describe Him. (Just like Zeus Himself is usually "all-seeing" or the "storm gatherer", etc.)
It means "the rich / the rich-giver", because Hades is the god of the underworld and earth itself (as opposed to Posseidon who's got the seas and Zeus who's in charge of the sky), and that's where most of mines are and on what crops grow. (Might also have been because, except for heros, most mortals - both good and bad ones - end up in Hades' realm - different sections of the underworld serve as both hell *and* heaven, unlike in christian mythology - so He ends up with the most follower).
Over time, this has shifted to his euphemistical name (the thing mortals use to name him as to not anger Him) He became known "The Rich / The Rich Giver". (Just like in christian mythology, Satan is called often "the devil" instead of by his name).
And then again, over time this became used as His official name. That's what the Romans eventually picked-up in Latin.
Fun fact, the Latin "Jupiter" (in nominative case) has a similar construction : it's the contraction of "Zeus + pater" ("the father" - obviously once you look at the genealogy of most of the Greeko-Roman pantheon). But when declined in other cases, only the name is kept, e.g.: Jovis (genetive case).
So for some period of time "Pluto" is also what the Greel go of the underworld was called,
and even for some period of time it was His actual name.
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