Comment on Dwarf Planets are people too

• Semjeza@fedinsfw.app ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  The arbitrary cutoff size being to ensure continuity of the scientific consensus in popular awareness when I was a child isn’t a stupid rule.

  Not even when a larger kuiper belt object is found.

  Not even, when since mass is the primary means of estimating size until we fly a probe out there, we estimate a smaller but much with much more mass object to be larger and we debate a 10th planet yet again.

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  • Apepollo11@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Hey, if we find something bigger than Pluto, then by all means let’s call it a planet.

    By any reasonable person’s definition of a planet, Pluto is a planet. It’s a rocky spherical mass that orbits the sun, with a varied terrain of mountains, plains and glaciers. It has days and seasons. It has its own system of moons.

    Additionally, bythe IAU’s stupid definition of a Dwarf Planet, Charon should really be called a dwarf planet too. It isn’t a satellite in a meaningful sense - both Pluto and Charon orbit a point between them. The other moons also orbit this space between Charon and Pluto.

    Want to know why it isn’t? Because the IAU class it as a planetary satellite. What’s the formal definition of a planetary satellite then? There isn’t one. It was discussed, but a formal definition was not decided upon. Charon is literally a moon now because it was called a moon before the definition of a planet was changed.

    I’m all for formal definitions, but the IAUs current rules are just really sloppy. It’s maddening.

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