Is Pluto a Planet?

Astronomy ^ | December 29, 2023 | David J. Eicher

[rellic]

I worked at the Keck Observatory for almost ten years and interacted daily with the people that voted on the question
of Pluto.
Make no mistake, they are very passionate about their hobby,
astronomy, but most everything they study is old history and of no significance to our modern world.
And it is a HOBBY they made into an industry!
The photon that strikes your face and warms you in the day took over a million years to get here.
Mathematics is your friend.
The Photons striking you all day and night long may have taken billions of years to get to you.
Does that solve our immediate survival problems?
No.
Only place I worry about is Earth.
That is where we live and can exist,
universe is nasty out there.
Go to Mars if you wish, but I’m sure Our Biology
won’t stand up to the rigors of alien worlds.
That being said I’m not some ECO “don’t touch or use anything” nut case like most “Ecologists”.
Conservation and let things grow, harvest when it is safe.
Aloha.

[metmom]

Yes. I never gave up on Pluto.

[algore]

It just proves that if you can control the language and claim to have Science on your side you can reclassify anything

I mean they never would ever change the definition of a vaccine would they ?

I had a list of words where the definitions had undergone massive changes but cannot find it.

[TermLimits4All]

I was taught in school, some decades ago, that Pluto is a planet. It’ll remain a planet for me.

[Mr Rogers]

[Some Fat Guy in L.A.]

Looks like a planet to me. I’ll just stick with that.

[zeugma]

I think arguments about definitions are inane, and changing the meaning of a word well-established in the language is insidious. All they really accomplished by reclassifying Pluto is to annoy a lot of people.

Exactly. It's also absurd for a tiny group of people who aren't even specialists in the object being reclassified to do so, and the rest of us go along with it. As far as I'm concerned, the solar system has 9 planets.

[isom35]

this video answers the question once and for all https://www.ign.com/videos/talkshow-with-spike-feresten-tv-pluto-is-no-longer-a-planet

[telescope115]

It looks like a planet to me….

[Tacrolimus1mg]

I’m flashing back to an episode of Rick and Morty.

[Svartalfiar]

Obviously Earth isn’t a planet either by their convoluted logic, these too clever by half nitwits did not take into consideration that most of life was wiped out including the dinosaur era by an asteroid some 65+ million years ago. This asteroid could have been crossing Earth’s orbit for a billion years and obviously Earth never cleared it until that fatal day.

You are right, but you're wrong.

That asteroid was not in Earth's orbit, it simply crossed it, the same way many comets and other bodies, at some point, cross the orbits of all the planets. The definition of "clearing its orbit" refers to any other bodies in the relatively same orbit, orbiting the same object. Which, every single planet has, except for Mercury (so far). Look up what "Trojan" or "Greek" asteroids are.

[Whatever Works]

I remember when Pluto was demoted. They waited for half of the voting body to leave (those in favor of leaving it a planet) and voted to change it. Controversial? I’ll say! I waited to see if the new designation would stand and got yelled at by a parent who’d just heard the news and DEMANDED that I teach it that way (We were studying the solar system at the time). I explained it had happened just 24 hours earlier and wanted to wait, given the circumstances and she went BALLISTIC on me. I hate clueless parents. I still think Pluto is a planet. They were the early wokesters. They changed the definition to create the answer they wanted ... After removing any opposing voices.

[chuckee]

Pluto is more of an exurb to our galaxy than it is a planet. Rentals are cheap there because the commute is a beast.

[Bikkuri]

I now use C.E. as "Christian Era" just to tick them off 😉

[poconopundit]

Pluto is a planette.

* * *

Ha, that’s clever, FatherofFive! You win the thread.

Seriously, this story is excellent: it lays out the interesting science and controversy in a pleasing and reader-conscious way.

Nice post, nick.

[Gaffer]

In my time (born 1950) it was a planet. Seems to me that ‘scientists’ like to redefine parameters. Is this to get ‘noticed?’ or published?

[quantim]

Whatever.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks DoodleBob.

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The demotion of Pluto was a political act by a supposedly scientific org, was a gratuitous and unnecessary action, carried out to belittle the US. IMHO of course. I'll stick with David Levy's view:

"To Pluto And Far Beyond" By David H. Levy, Parade, January 15, 2006 -- We don't have a dictionary definition yet that includes all the contingencies. In the wake of the new discovery, however, the International Astronomical Union has set up a group to develop a workable definition of planet. For our part, in consultation with several experienced planetary astronomers, Parade offers this definition: A planet is a body large enough that, when it formed, it condensed under its own gravity to be shaped like a sphere. It orbits a star directly and is not a moon of another planet.

[Reynoldo]

Is Pluto a planet?

Yes.

[nickcarraway]

Saying Pluto isn’t a planet is insurrection!