i just found that charming analogy, that i want to share with you :p
https://columbiachronicle.com/metro/79ce17ec-ff01-5e3d-88f4-60f2480ce7fa/
I’m almost entirely ambivalent to Pluto.
“yup that sure is a rock, mhmm”
This whole Pluto controversy is just nailing down how fitting Eris’ naming was imo
The whole Pluto thing is it’s a strange arguement because we don’t have a good definition for planet anyway. Apparently a rocky world like earth is a planet, and a gaseous world like Jupiter is a planet, but a small rocky world like Pluto isn’t a planet. What?
The definition for planet seems to be, it’s round and we call it a planet. The arguement against Pluto seems to be that it isn’t much bigger than its own moon, which I don’t understand as an arguement, because no one ever said planets had to be big, just round, and Pluto is round. Also the term “double planet exists” and the key in that sentence is that it contains the word planet.
If the moon wasn’t in orbit of the earth, we would call it a planet. Mercury isn’t much larger and we’ve always called it a planet.
The entire thing comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of science. It annoys the everloving shit out of me.
The definition of planet is clear and unambiguous, people just pretend it’s confusing because they don’t like it.
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It orbits a star.
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Its gravity is greater than hydrostatic forces, causing it to be spherical.
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It contains a majority of the mass in its orbit.
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the definition of planet is basically “the most noteworthy objects in the solar system, limited to a number that people can easily memorize”
For some reason my brain was stuck thinking this was about Plato and not Pluto and I couldn’t figure out what it was trying to say
Of course Pluto’s a dog, have they even watched the cartoon?
Why doesn’t he talk though, like goofy?
Goofy is a bumbling idiot. Far too incompetent to understand that he can’t talk.
You hear about Pluto? That’s messed up right?
kind of bullshit though.
If pluto was a bit closer with a smaller orbit, it would have cleared it.
Being a planet should be more about geology than where it is situated (we have even terms for planets with no orbits “rogue planet”).
Having a “dwarf” qualifier would be fine, but it is a qualifier.
And it was mostly done because we kept finding more planets and didn’t want to update the posters. That’s bs, imagine if when we began discovering new elements we made up some bullshit rules to keep the periodic table small?
Heard some alternative definitions that are interesting, based on their geology. If it is just a pile of debris loosely attached then not a planet, big enough for geology to happen (new minerals formed by pressure and becomes round) planet. It makes moon a planet, unless you want to include parameters like “must orbit a star”. but that seems arbitrary.
Let the moon be a planet AND a satellite of another planet.
I want news whenever they discover a new planet, no one cares when they name a new dwarf planet.
make solar system posters updetable like periodic tables.
It makes moon a planet, unless you want to include parameters like “must orbit a star”. but that seems arbitrary.
This is the core conceptual and historical distinction between a moon and a planet. If your definition of moon doesn’t include the moon, our moon, Luna, you’ve fucked up.
The concept of a planet is about orbits. That’s what the word means; the wandering points of light in the night sky. Moons don’t wander separately from their planet. Dwarf planets aren’t points of light distinct from the rest of the asteroid belt they’re in.
It makes moon a planet, unless you want to include parameters like “must orbit a star”. but that seems arbitrary.
I mean, that’s exactly the rule they added to prevent the moon from being a planet.
But also like… Who fucking cares if it was?
rule of cool
which system would you rather have, one with “dwarf planet” or one with “planet Moon”.
planet Moon sounds way cooler than the moon.
False comparison. Moon Luna sounds way cooler than Planet Moon.
What if the dog is called Pluto and the planet Sparky?
