What does supporting life have anything to do with it? A moon could support life. That doesn't make it a planet. If you take away size, then any asteroid (or worse, any measely meteoroid) circling the sun would be a planet. If you take away distance, then you include Oort Cloud objects, which have an orbit of 1 light year!
Again, I don't know the specifics, and I'm too lazy to do research on it, but I know that not only is Pluto very small (I think the next biggest is twice as big), its maximum distance from the sun is very far, and what bothers me the most, its orbit (in shape and plane) is unlike any other planet's by far. If it is unique in composition or shape, I don't know. If you put the minimum requirements for planethood within Pluto's reach, then we are likely to be forced to acknowledge many other objects, reducing the concept to something somewhat less than before. True, if we are to go with the original meaning ("wanderer"), then any asteroid, comet, floating hunk of junk fits this description. But this is not what "planet" means to me, or most people.
...but since it has been so engraved into our brains and culture, it would be difficult to convince Joe Everyman that it isn't. Still, we should probably rework and specify the definition of planet such that had Pluto been discovered today, it would not be classified as such.
"Moller International has developed the first and only feasible, personally affordable, personal vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) vehicle the world has ever seen."
Riiiiiiight...
Webcomics Dissect You!
Seriously, though, I think it's valid to study/dissect any art form, however mundane and non-classical. The artists may not agree with such a study, but that doesn't make it unworthy. The creators of the first movies (short little unartistic spectacles) probably wouldn't say they made "art," yet they are still studied as such, and had an important social/historical/artistic impact.
Slashdot Mirror
What does supporting life have anything to do with it? A moon could support life. That doesn't make it a planet. If you take away size, then any asteroid (or worse, any measely meteoroid) circling the sun would be a planet. If you take away distance, then you include Oort Cloud objects, which have an orbit of 1 light year!
Again, I don't know the specifics, and I'm too lazy to do research on it, but I know that not only is Pluto very small (I think the next biggest is twice as big), its maximum distance from the sun is very far, and what bothers me the most, its orbit (in shape and plane) is unlike any other planet's by far. If it is unique in composition or shape, I don't know. If you put the minimum requirements for planethood within Pluto's reach, then we are likely to be forced to acknowledge many other objects, reducing the concept to something somewhat less than before. True, if we are to go with the original meaning ("wanderer"), then any asteroid, comet, floating hunk of junk fits this description. But this is not what "planet" means to me, or most people.
...but since it has been so engraved into our brains and culture, it would be difficult to convince Joe Everyman that it isn't. Still, we should probably rework and specify the definition of planet such that had Pluto been discovered today, it would not be classified as such.
"Moller International has developed the first and only feasible, personally affordable, personal vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) vehicle the world has ever seen." Riiiiiiight...
Webcomics Dissect You! Seriously, though, I think it's valid to study/dissect any art form, however mundane and non-classical. The artists may not agree with such a study, but that doesn't make it unworthy. The creators of the first movies (short little unartistic spectacles) probably wouldn't say they made "art," yet they are still studied as such, and had an important social/historical/artistic impact.