Pluto is only 68% of the size of the Earth’s moon. It is only about 2.5 times larger than Ceres, the largest asteroid in our solar system.
A large part of science is refining your understanding as contradictory evidence is found. I used to think Pluto should be a planet, and even met Clyde Tombaugh once, but I have absolutely no concerns about Pluto being reclassified as a dwarf planet. It is just a label and our understanding evolves.
The IAU can go to buggery: Pluto was, is, and always will be a planet!
This kind of thing just fuels the anti-science conservative agenda. Knock it off.
Explain
It rejects science and calls back to “back in my day” folksy rhetoric as the only “evidence” that it should regain planetary status, and frames the entire change as a bureaucratic process being run by out of touch elites. It’s conservative populism at it’s finest. Straight out of their playbook.
if you wanna call Pluto a a planet, do it. The IAU is not going to arrest you or something.
Don’t believe this person, I said it was a planet and spent 5years locked away in the planetarium
(No, this is not a personal opinion).
That sounds awesome. Did you get to look at all the exhibits?
No I had to stay in the toilet
And the sun is flat. Fight me.
It is known.
You think the sun is flat?
Bro… The UNIVERSE is flat.
Listen, like birds and Australia, the universe doesn’t exist.
It’s true
The argument that Pluto would be a planet if it were in a different orbital track is pretty disingenuous, because in a different orbital track it might also be a moon of Jupiter or just flung out into interstellar space.
I think the argument was more of proposing that the definition of its own orbital track is not informative of anything of the body itself but instead only of what is surrounding the object. The argument seems to be an extension of the planetary scientist school of thought (definition of planet should describe planet) vs the astronomical side (name describes motion/in relation to its surroundings)
Yeah, and if my grandma had a weener, she’d have been my grandpa.
Either we now have to learn like 21 planets in elementary school (hard) or Pluto gets a technical demotion (easy).
Pluto is still a planet in all our hearts, this is just humanities constant march of trying to become more and more accurate and precise with time
Pluto is still a planet in all our hearts
My heart pumps blood. My brain does the thinking. Pluto is not a planet. So what? It’s still fascinating.
Pluto and Charon are tidally locked, meaning they always face each other as they orbit around. Romanticizing a bit, they are like dancers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bU5pQWQRxak
I’m your moon, you’re my moon,
We go round and round.
From out here, it’s the rest of the world that looks so small.
Promise me you will always remember who you are.
Labels can be helpful for categorizing, organizing our knowledge. Labels do not define us. We’re all space stuff.
Pluto and Charon are tidally locked
To clarify, they’re mutually tidally locked, which is what’s rare
Oh, so if light was hitting it’s moon you could navigate just by where it is in the sky? I mean I guess you can do that with ours too, but this sounds way easier.
This is the song let me forgive science for what they did to Pluto. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wrJ6_GAprFE
More recently, the campaign has taken on a populist tinge, with Trump’s Nasa administrator, Jared Isaacman, telling a congressional committee in April that he was in favour of a rethink. “I am very much in the camp of Make Pluto a Planet Again,” he said.
I think this says all that needs to be said about it.
Oh, so just another faux-populist distraction. I don’t even see the epstein files comments anymore here
Just because it’s the only one discovered by an American… Typical.
no. I really wish non scientists would stay out of details like what is actual medicine or classification of astronimical objects.
I’m no scientist, but it’s a pretty obvious no if you understand the reason it’s no longer considered a planet.
oh yeah and me to but I have been technically a scientist at times. Still many people can understand it but some I don’t think even want to. They want to hand wave it away and go with their feelings about what should be a planet.
Didn’t china now have a law where any chucklefuck without a degree can’t talk about science or medicine on social media to curb dipshit takes?
not sure im willing to go that far but boy is it annoying.
They say Pluto is not a planet. Do you think that Pluto gives a shit? https://youtu.be/kK0KPuH32mc
Pluto in a tiny squeaky voice: “yes”
Betteridge, in a Doctor Manhattan voice: “No.”
Oh, plutodrama is still going on. What is the current definition of planet?
Orbits the sun, has enough gravity to form a sphere and has cleared it’s orbit. It’s the clearing the orbit part where Pluto fails, as do Ceres, Haumea, Makemake, and Eris. And also Quaoar, Orcus, Ixion, Varuna, Sedna, Gonggong, Salacia, Varda, Hygiea and Vesta. They all orbit in basically an asteroid field.
Do the Trojan asteroid clusters in Jupiter’s L4 and L5 points still count as “clearing its orbit”?
What if there were a second planet-sized body there?
Do the Trojan asteroid clusters in Jupiter’s L4 and L5 points still count as “clearing its orbit”?
What if there were a second planet-sized body there?
I would say in that example:
- Jupiter is the dominant mass making it be the planet.
- Anything in the Lagrangian points would not be planets specifically because anything in those points are there because of Jupiter and its orbit, not in spite of it.
There are mathematical formulae for defining it and the dwarf planets have orders of magnitude lower values in comparison to planets: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearing_the_neighbourhood
Clearing the orbit is a very shorthand version of the meaning. If it was literal, nothing could be a planet as there’s always something in every orbital path. It means the planet is massive enough to be the dominant thing within its orbit.
Mercury: sweats
Mercury is an interesting case. While there are some moons that are larger than it, they aren’t nearly as dense. Its surface gravity is only a little less than Mars, even though its smaller in size, so it has potential for orbital domination. The Sun certainly helps in keeping other objects clear, but that shouldn’t be part of the equation, if Mercury qualifies as a planet it should be able to do it in any orbit. I wonder if you put Mercury where Ceres is and ran for a few millennia what would happen?
Everything sweats (or boils) that close to the sun.
Gonggong
The gorilla from Super Monkey Ball?
It’s also a god in Chinese mythology.
That makes a lot more sense
So a coin stops being money if tossed to a garbage pile? :)
If the coin is so big that you don’t notice the garbage, it’s money. If you have to sift through the garage to find the coin, it’s just worthless loose change.
A forged coin isn’t money despite seeming like it is at first glance.
Pluto is real. The only problem with it – it being in the garbage belt and not in a separate orbit. Or is there something else?
Well, forged coins are also “real”. They can be identical to authentic coins but still be counterfeit.
Position very much matters to planets or else large moons would be planets.
Just link planets to the star and there won’t be any problems with “large moons”.
Trump is literally just doing sitcom bits now
Everyone forgets Pallas.
The raven remembers
More recently, the campaign has taken on a populist tinge, with Trump’s Nasa administrator, Jared Isaacman, telling a congressional committee in April that he was in favour of a rethink. “I am very much in the camp of Make Pluto a Planet Again,” he said.
