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Pluto Should Be Reclassified as a Planet, Experts Say (sciencedaily.com)
The reason Pluto lost its planet status is not valid, according to new research from the University of Central Florida in Orlando. From a report: In 2006, the International Astronomical Union, a global group of astronomy experts, established a definition of a planet that required it to "clear" its orbit, or in other words, be the largest gravitational force in its orbit. Since Neptune's gravity influences its neighboring planet Pluto, and Pluto shares its orbit with frozen gases and objects in the Kuiper belt, that meant Pluto was out of planet status. However, in a new study published online Wednesday in the journal Icarus, UCF planetary scientist Philip Metzger, who is with the university's Florida Space Institute, reported that this standard for classifying planets is not supported in the research literature. Metzger, who is lead author on the study, reviewed scientific literature from the past 200 years and found only one publication -- from 1802 -- that used the clearing-orbit requirement to classify planets, and it was based on since-disproven reasoning. He said moons such as Saturn's Titan and Jupiter's Europa have been routinely called planets by planetary scientists since the time of Galileo.
"The IAU definition would say that the fundamental object of planetary science, the planet, is supposed to be a defined on the basis of a concept that nobody uses in their research," Metzger said. "And it would leave out the second-most complex, interesting planet in our solar system." "We now have a list of well over 100 recent examples of planetary scientists using the word planet in a way that violates the IAU definition, but they are doing it because it's functionally useful," he said. "It's a sloppy definition," Metzger said of the IAU's definition. "They didn't say what they meant by clearing their orbit. If you take that literally, then there are no planets, because no planet clears its orbit."
"The IAU definition would say that the fundamental object of planetary science, the planet, is supposed to be a defined on the basis of a concept that nobody uses in their research," Metzger said. "And it would leave out the second-most complex, interesting planet in our solar system." "We now have a list of well over 100 recent examples of planetary scientists using the word planet in a way that violates the IAU definition, but they are doing it because it's functionally useful," he said. "It's a sloppy definition," Metzger said of the IAU's definition. "They didn't say what they meant by clearing their orbit. If you take that literally, then there are no planets, because no planet clears its orbit."
Jerry Smith.
Pluto was a cartoon dog!
It's so weird to see people get so emotional about this.
I mean, Pluto was called a planet when I was growing up too, but I've moved on.
this sh*t again. Just leave it alone guys.It doesn't make a difference if it's a planet or not.
What, are you afraid of Pluto being a planet??
I heard about the history of Pluto at WorldCon 76. I thought the eggheads had settled this issue already?
The redefinition of the phrase presented in the summary is silly. “Clearing its orbit” means just what it says. But then Neptune also fails that test, since it hasn’t “cleared its orbit” of Pluto - and therein lies the problem.
If scientists had meant a planet should “be the largest gravitational force in its orbit”, they would have said exactly that. The phrasing is clear, concise, and unambiguous.
#DeleteChrome
$250 for a new textbook I can see why they flipit
As people who classifying and organizing information is second nature, this is a pretty huge "duh" kind of thing.
Far from removing things from the "planet" group, the higher super-set of "planet" should be all inclusive and loosely defined itself.
Instead there should be sub-sets of different types of planets, like you know, how most of them have been for some time now.
A good naming hierarchy is your friend.
Even the name "dwarf planet" implies a sub-type of "planet" called "dwarf"
Keep splitting up groups into smaller groups that have more detailed distinctions as our knowledge increases.
Even the current useless definition of stupid can fit inside such a classification system without messing with the actual scientifically defined distinctions already used.
I for one wouldn't want to see kids in school forced to learn "names of planets in our solar system" coming from a list with millions upon millions of names in it, which is why inside vs outside of the kuiper belt is one great distinction.
But this just means two new group names to represent inside vs outside of that belt, and you learn the list of whatever we name that inside the belt group.
But despite where or how far a planet is, it should still be a planet.
Reclassify? But Pluto has always been a planet and shall also be in the future. Why, are some poor misguided souls saying otherwise?
What's a planet?
Jerry was right!
We don't consider medical definitions in the context of the four humours, heck late 19th century astronomers thought space was filled with luminiferous aether so why are their opinions on the definition of planets suddenly considered insightful.
So how many planets do you want?
If we let Pluto be a planet, then our solar system will also have to start officially calling all the other minor planets, planets. i don't think that's reasonable or important. its simply not worth it. Pluto is a an object, we know its there, but it doesn't need to be on a list that includes the 8 major planets. i don't care how you categorize it, we simply cannot have a never ending list of planets to include in our definition of the solar system.
-Jeff
He went on to say "Pluto is a dog, that's the end of it. If those astronomos... if those anonomos... those...., if they don't get their act together I'm going to get involved."
In other news he announced that if impeached and convicted, he can pardon himself. What a deal, I bet every criminal out there is thinking, if i'm tried and convicted, hell, I can just pardon myself. If the president can do it, why can't I?"
I'm going to tell that to the judge the next time I fight a speeding ticket.
Sure Donald pardon yourself. That'll be the easy part. The hard part will be getting the guards at Leavenworth to unlock your cell.
--
We narrowly avoided blowing ourselves back to the stone age in a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. To celebrate we decided to vote ourselves back to the stone age anyway.
Impacts on Earth and Jupiter clearly show they haven't "Cleared their Orbits" either.
Read the Wikipedia article on clearing the neighborhood. It's defined well enough and people know what it means. Claiming that "If you take that literally, then there are no planets, because no planet clears its orbit." is like pointing to the requirement that a planet must be round, and saying that if you take that literally, no planet is round. Yes, no planet is 100% round, but it's possible for a planet to be close to round or not very close to round, and the same goes for clearing the neighborhood.
The research that shows that nobody used this definition in the past is probably correct. But it doesn't help. Scientists can make up new definitions.
Furthermore, while it's also true that planetary scientists call lots of things planets, the report itself admits that they also use the term for moons. Nobody else is going to start calling Pluto a planet under a definition that also includes moons.
A planet has more than just orbit-clearing characteristics.
Additionally, its mass should be enough to form a spheroid. Pluto looks like a goddam potato.
A planet should stay in its own orbit.
Because the orbit is elliptically challenged, Pluto is sometimes the seventh planet and sometimes ninth, making Neptune sometimes eighth and sometimes ninth. Planets gotta make up their minds.
The fucking tater-shaped object travels all the way out to the Kuiper belt.
It's gotta be a publicity stunt. I smell money somewhere in all this.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
I'm no expert in the field, but growing up, I would have just naturally figured a planet to be a large body who's primary orbit is the star of it's solar system.
Then they made things weird.
Seriously there was more literature out there, like the one published in 2006.
But in all seriousness what kind of a stupid basis for a new definition is that? "You can't use this new definition because it's different than the old definition". No shit Shirlock.
Pluto lost. Get over it.
In the body of the summary, the phrase "according to new research" should be rewritten to say "according to one person's opinion," since there actually is no research involved.
That's why!
I think that's what typos are for. The publisher doesn't really want to have to change the material.... that sounds like a lot of work.
Slashdot is a car magazine right? Why not have more articles about cars? Is whining about science that much better than whining about cars? Tech jobs, HR, IT industry, and cars makes as much sense as the weak science offering.
The real issue is that he's proposing a shit-ton of objects be classified as planets. Pluto just happens to be one of them.
Perhaps Planette.
I think few people would call that a "planet". In common usage, moons orbit planets, planets orbit stars.
The only issue is that there are some other things that orbit stars: asteroids, stellar rings, etc. Among those, planets are objects large enough to have been shaped into a spheroid under gravitation.
It's a silly debate on labels. The object referenced by the word "Pluto" is whatever it is, regardless of what we call it or how we define it.
Oh, a wanderer by any other name....
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
If Pluto identifies as a planet then I think we should respect that decision. Maybe Pluto is astronomical body fluid, one day a planet, the next day not.
In Solar orbit and larger mass than Earth's Moon is a planet. I could be convinced that greater diameter would count.
Anything orbiting another body that isn't the sun, is a moon or something else. I haven't seen a definition of the minimal size to be called "moon", but beach ball-sized objects in rings don't count. If I can't walk on it using gravity alone, it probably isn't a moon.
Anything else is something else, not a planet, not a moon.
Is this really so hard?
By what criteria is Pluto the second most interesting planet in the solar system? Jupiter is clearly the second most complex and interesting planet in the solar system. In fact, if this ball of rock and ice hadn't developed life, Jupiter would probably be the most interesting planet around here.
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In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
The official IAU definition sucks, but it makes more sense to think of Pluto as part of a class of objects of which it is the largest. Eris being the second. These icy objects are very different than the inner planets (celestial objects are really a spectrum and hard definitions can be difficult (see brown dwarf, not a star, not really a planet). But what matters is what astronomers and planetary scientists think is conceptually useful. Even when Pluto was discovered it wasn't clear it should be called a planet. Ceres was considered to be a planet for a lot longer than Pluto was. Though I was excited when one of the proposed IAU definitions alongside what became the official definition would have classified it as a planet.
Blut Pluto is a world in it's own right now that we've visited it. It's a place. So is Ceres, Vesta, even P/67 Churyumov–Gerasimenko is a world now that we've been there. They are no longer points of light or blurry objects in our telescopes. I use world as a poetic term not a scientific one. I know this comment is short on details arguing against considering Pluto a planet but considering it a world.
The other reason I don't want Pluto to be re-classified as a planet is because people would lose interest in astronomy and forget about. It keeps people engaged in the debate. However, if you want to call it a planet, fine. I'll call it a world.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
So you mean to tell me Carl Sagan 2.0 Neil SmokesGrass Tyson aka Sinbad from the 1980's was wrong?
Pluto isn't on the same axis as the other planets and it gets inside the orbit of another planet. If it never was classified as a planet there's no argument for making it one now.
Of some certain density, or at least have sufficient gravity to do so. If that means kicking Mercury out of the club along with Pluto, so be it!
(T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)
Any definition of planet has to be true for:
All objects universally agreed on in our solar system to be planets
All exoplanets of Earth size or larger
All rogue planets that are not brown dwarfs
All planets within accretion disks
This basically means you can't use shape, orbit or objects in proximity in your definition.
Your definition must exclude all:
Rocky asteroids
Rubble pile asteroids
Comets
Brown dwarves
Stars
Dead stars in orbit around other stars
That's not going to be easy, since a lot of characteristics are shared.
Finally, any definition must be as simple as possible and predictive. On seeing a new planetary object, given a certain perfect subset of characteristics plus the definition, we must be able to infer at least one other thing about the object. Otherwise, it's not a useful definition.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
It's what I learned in school back in the 1980's and it is still true now.
Corporatism != Free Market
The classification of "planet" is mainly for the benefit of the general public. This is a pragmatic decision that helps keep knowledge of the Universe accessible and manageable for the masses. Sorry planetary scientists but your needs are secondary. Relax, you'll survive this.
Nope. Justifying that Neptune influences Pluto's orbit is just wrong. Pluto influences Earth's orbit. Is Earth not a planet? "Clears the orbit" is pretty clear.
You are incorrectly assuming that 'clearing it's orbit' is to be interpreted literally. It's not!
'Clearing its orbit ' doesn't mean an planet's orbit is completely devoid of any object, whether it's an asteroid hundreds of miles across. or a grain of sand. An object that is gravitational dominant in its orbit, has no other objects of comparable size in it's orbit and is not under the gravitational influence of any other objects with the exception of it's satellites has 'cleared it's orbit' and along with other criteria is classified as a planet.
Every day Earth, and every other large object in our solar system, is bombarded with thousands of meteors, most smaller than the grain of sand. Applying a literal definition of 'clearing it's orbit' would mean Earth is not a planet since these micro-meteors remain in its' orbit.
Pluto was mistakenly classified as a planet in the first place as I believe, and this comes from not always perfect memory, astronomers were looking for Planet X and Pluto just happened to be where PX was predicted, and they originally thought Pluto was much more massive than what it turned out to be.
It earned its demotion. Let it rot with the rest of the extremists like the racist alt-right and the just as racist SJW.
numbnuts
Pluto's a f@#n planet Bitch!
Flippy Nips
After we launched the Pioneer probes with plaques showing how to find us and what tasty snacks were available here, and then the Voyager probes with the golden records aboard that showed aliens how to get here, some had reason to be a bit concerned. But then some eggheads saved the day by re-classifying Pluto as no longer a planet, making all those deep space bound maps wrong and we were all able to sigh with relief. If Pluto is now going to be a planet again, those maps with a 9 planet solar system will once again be valid and we should all prepare to welcome our new alien overlords...
...Pluto wasn't the only "planet" discovered by a US american. This discussion is not about science, it is about the bloated ego of a nation where pressure is measured in pounds per square foot....
The original word planet means a wandering start, a distant light in the sky. Now that we know more about those distant lights, we could have better words to describe them, based on mass instead.
For example, "Piccolo" for meteors, "Magnum" for rocky planets, "Jeroboam" for giant planets, "Rehoboam" for small stars etc.
You can classify Pluto as a daffodil for all it matters, it's still the same damn rock. Arguments about semantics are worthless.
No more voting when just about everyone has already left the conference. If the full membership were there Pluto would still be a planet. It was stupid to do what they did.
...Patrick Moore playing the xylophone.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I love the T-shirt going around:
PLUTO
Never Forget
1930-2006
Apparently some people are taking this as more than a joke!
Just think, to avoid the controversy, the IAU should have just made two proposals.
The "traditional solar system". With the nine planets.
The the "modern definition" and the 8 major planets and the ever increasing number of minor planets, and planet X, and probably eventually the remains of Krypton.
Little need to re-write the books, just note that you are using a traditional definition, or a modern definition.
Q:I was listening to a CD in Grip and it sounded horrible! What's up? A:Perhaps you are listening to country music
A basketball sized glob of molasses placed in orbit somewhere between Mercury and Venus,
1. Has its own clear orbit
2. is spherical due to its own internal forces (gravity/surface tension... whatever)
3. Orbits the Sun.
Ergo, it satisfies all the requirements for being a planet.
Furthermore, to the argument that kids can't remember all those worlds, have you ever heard of a game called pokemon? Ask the kids how many of those characters they know all the intimate details for.
More planets is more interesting. Rocky planets, gas planets, minor planets, dwarf planets, secondary or sub planets (prev. called "moons", but there's only one "moon" named The Moon...)
My kids know about Ceres, Eris, Even esoteric things like Triton (yes, with an r) and Vulcan (not the Spock world, but the phantom PLANET people used to believe was between Mercury and the Sun.)
Lastly -- Astronomers are not Lexicographers. Get back into your own profession, usurpers. You can call them what you want, but we get to make our own language, thank you very much.
(A computer programmer, a philosopher and the dad of a daughter caught wearing a slutty dress all have different definitions of the word "argument." So there.)