A newly discovered cosmic object is not a planet, not a moon — but a third thing we don’t have a name for yet.
To me, this opening sentence summarizes the whole article. We shouldn’t expect to have handy, accurate, convenient labels for everything when we’ve only observed a tiny fraction of our own galactic “neighborhood”. Running into weird stuff is the entire point of exploration, and I love it!
To me, this opening sentence summarizes the whole article. We shouldn’t expect to have handy, accurate, convenient labels for everything when we’ve only observed a tiny fraction of our own galactic “neighborhood”. Running into weird stuff is the entire point of exploration, and I love it!
Our classification is pretty straightforward - be big enough to be a sphere, big enough to dominate your orbit, be in orbit around the star
Too small to own the orbit? Dwarf planet
In orbit around a planet? Moon
This one orbits a star, it’s a planet