dwarves would like a word
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m not concerned with Pluto’s feelings. If it’s too small, has an irregular orbit, hasn’t cleared its immediate vicinity, etc., then fine, it doesn’t meet the objective standards by which we’re going to define planets going forward, that’s totally acceptable.
But saying that a dwarf planet isn’t a planet is just bad etymology. It’s got the word planet right in there, but it’s not a planet? That’s super confusing for the casual user.
Planetoid, on the other hand, had been in common use for literally decades, and it makes perfectly good etymological sense. Asteroid = star-like, because if you’re not careful you might mistake it for a star. Planetoid = planet-like, for the same reason.
I don’t want justice for Pluto, I want justice for linguistic clarity!
Should be something like PeniPlanet/PaenPlanet = “Almost a planet”, Like Peninsula/Paeninsula = “Almost an island”
The new definition is bullshit. Even earth hasn’t fully cleared its orbit.
Gótefodamn Inyalowdas just wanna keep my home Ceres down, Sasa Ké?
Lol this was a good comment
fun fact: it’s also the only planet discovered by an american, which i suspect is why americans have such a big “pluto is a planet” movement - they’re proud of the only planet they discovered.
i’ve literally never heard anyone argue about whether pluto is a planet over here in europe. it’s just not an issue.
This comment takes the cake for the weirdest anti-American comment I’ve read on Lemmy today. I get it, America is bad, but how in the sam’s hell did you come to the conclusion that it had anything to do with an American discovering it? (90% of the country probably doesn’t know that, btw)
I mean, there was a group of Europeans that were pretty adamant about it not being a planet.
I don’t think most Americans are aware of Pluto being an American discovery. That would require scientific and historical knowledge, both things that are not our strong points.
I say this as an American astronomy nerd.
facts
Not just an American, one from Illinois. And Illinois passed a law so Pluto is legally still a planet.
https://columbiachronicle.com/metro/79ce17ec-ff01-5e3d-88f4-60f2480ce7fa/
“People still love Pluto; they always have,” Sweitzer said. “Think of it this way. Let’s say you have a dozen cats at home, but one of them has always been kind of strange. It’s furry like a cat. It has four legs like a cat. But every so often it barks. But you just think, ‘Oh, that’s just strange Sparky. He’s a little off.’ Then one day you learn about dogs and all of a sudden you realize Sparky is actually not a cat at all-he’s a dog. That doesn’t change how much you love Sparky. And that is how it is with Pluto.”
whoa that’s charming :3
Cats are alive and terrestrial though…
Wow, what a stupid fucking waste of time and money.
I’m struggling to put into words why this shit irks me so much… It’s like they’re trying to turn mainstream understanding of science into a team sport like they’ve done with politics.
In fact, now that I think about it that way it makes complete sense, and it’s been wildly successful.
What about in the old myths where Pluto, Neptune, Mars were used as god’s names? Weren’t they referring to the planets back then?
Other way around.
I like to imagine the alternative world, where instead of deplanetizing Pluto, they planetized all the dwarf planets and planetoids in our system.
The Earth’s Moon is about 1.5 times bigger than Pluto.
And the 2006 decimation of planet that made Pluto not a planet explicitly added “must not orbit another object” to stop the moon from being a planet.
And Titan is 6% bigger than Mercury.
in Asimov’s Foundation series, there is (was) a galaxy-spanning human civilization, but Earth was lost and mostly considered mythical. One of the arguments against it actually existing was the absurdity of such a double planet system existing. In the wider galaxy only giant planets had such large satellites.
In his books were they similarly absurdly tiny, rotating in irregular orbits well outside of their class of planets, and inhabiting an entire solar system of similarly sized unremarkable objects?
If that happened, then school children would no longer be required to learn the names of all of the planets. That’s just a practical concern with adding another several dozen planets to the list.
And I think it is worthwhile to make kids learn the names and some basic facts about the 8 planets we have.
Did you ever have to memorize the periodic table? This would be a walk in the park by comparison, at least using the current dwarf planet definition.
It’s a grade school vs high school thing though. Also only our AP chem class had to memorize the entire table. Knowing the first 20-40 was sufficient for everyone else.
How many could there be?
Officially only 4 trans-Neptunian objects have been recognized as dwarf planets. But here’s a paper that proposes another 36 known objects to be dwarf planets.
That’s about what the situation was in 2006 as well. A new technology was worked out to make it easier to find these, and once it did a bunch of discoveries came in really fast. The writing was definitely on the wall.
If you include the entire Oort cloud, there could be billions of objects out there.
I think that’s so cool!
I wonder what they’re like (I’m sure the answer is cold and rocky, but still!)
We need more deities!
Haumea is fun. It’s got a weird shape that bulges out, giving it a profile similar to an egg:
According to Plato we can just keep making them up. So I’m down!
My addition is Uupta goddess of warm fires and comforting foods. Put her wherever but I feel she’s close to the sun somehow.
I thought dwarf planets still had to be round, and they just lack the “cleared its orbit” requirement (e.g. Ceres in the asteroid belt). That would disqualify any Oort cloud objects except Pluto and Charon as far as I know.
It’s true. Dwarf planets do have to be round (“in hydrostatic equilibrium”). That requirement will definitely disqualify many of the hypothetical billions of Oort cloud objects.
Ceres is an official dwarf planet, but I excluded it from my list because I was focusing on trans-Neptunians.
A big reason why the IAU hasn’t confirmed most of the 36 is because they want strong evidence of roundness, like a spacecraft flyby with direct imaging. Pluto and Eris are close enough that earth telescopes can just barely resolve some of their shapes.
Finally, Pluto and Charon are too close to be considered in the Oort cloud. Sedna, whose discovery precipitated a lot of this crisis, has been nominated as the very first discovered object in the “inner Oort cloud.” Sedna’s perihelion is at 76 AU.
Oops, right – Pluto and Charon are in the Kuiper Belt, not the Oort Cloud. I really shouldn’t mix those up.
I thought Haumea, Eris, and Makemake were solidly considered dwarf planets. But we don’t have good images of those, do we?
in fact, there are only glowing stars and non-glowing stars :)
Pluto never changed, we did
Exactly. Planet is a social construct and we changed the threshold for what was considered one.
No, our scientific understanding evolved, and a classification of something changed. It’s really not any deeper than that.
Happens constantly in science. Kind of one of its defining features actually
The beauty of science. Most exciting when we find out we’re incorrect
Didn’t even the poor guy finish a whole victory lmao around the sun either
This is outrageous. It’s unfair!
Calm down Anakin
I know!! And I heard they’re making Jupiter female!!
https://youtube.com/watch?v=grdu6UBK76w
Recommended watch
I love how he mentions Pluto like… once.
That was fun, thanks!
Pluto is not sentient. It cares not for the judgement of men.
It would have to be sapient to care for the judgement anyway.
why do so many people care that some big rock had its category of big rock changed…
It honestly irks the fuck out of me that people care so much (or pretend to care as some form of cultural pantomime?).
Turning science into a team sport. What could possibly go wrong.
Because it broke our mnemonics.
My very educated mother just served us nine pizzas.
Pizzas. Nine of them.
Not nachos.
In German, my father now has to explain the entire night sky, not just our nine planets.
They thought they were being taught a capital T Truth about how the world works and they were never told that that’s not how science works. So when science took away that Truth, their entire worldview was in peril because what other Truths can just be thrown out willy-nilly?!
People care about things not because of some intrinsic value, but because of our relationship to them.
We love our pets, and don’t really care about food animals. We are upset when a friend is in an accident, but not about people who died 500 years ago. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Take a lesson from space
They say “Pluto’s not a planet”
Do you think that Pluto gives a shit?
Pluto is not gonna quit
'Cause Pluto can take a hit
And Pluto knows what Pluto is
And Pluto knows that Pluto’s
Hot shit!
And you know Pluto knows it
I won’t ever be a planet, it don’t matter, 'cause I know that I’m still
Hot shit!
And you’re hot shit too, so get out of your brain and just do what you’re supposed to do!
Hot shit!
And you know Pluto knows it
Expect some fuckin’ magic from the Dwarf Planet
Hot shit!
And you’re hot shit too, so get out of your way and just do what you were born to do!
I came here to reference this too :D
Way to beat a dead horse, Lemmy
Wait until you find out what they did to Ceres!!!
