Poll of the Day > Should Pluto regain its planetary status?

(+) Yeah! (+)

What do you think?

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/f/f719a398.jpg

absolutely not

it lost it for a reason

It's a binary planet with Charon; which is fitting since in Astrology Pluto typically represented sibling/twin problems

It's barely even the biggest TNO out there, but it is also the closest. I get why people feel like it should be a planet but by any reasonable standard it shouldn't. There's no argument anyone could make for Pluto to be a planet but Eris not to be.

And for another hot take I'd like to see the definition of a moon updated to exclude things that are not much bigger than a shoebox.

Pluto should regain it's planetary status and we should help it by sending all our garbage there so it can attain more mass.

Yes

willythemailboy posted...

There's no argument anyone could make for Pluto to be a planet but Eris not to be.

This is the big thing. Either Pluto isn't a planet, or we add another 2-3 dwarf planets to the roster of planets. Those are the only two options. There's no objective basis for only bringing back Pluto.

No.

Seems like something trump would try to do and republicans would get all excited about

adjl posted...

This is the big thing. Either Pluto isn't a planet, or we add another 2-3 dwarf planets to the roster of planets. Those are the only two options. There's no objective basis for only bringing back Pluto.

Are they worried elementary school students will have a harder time memorizing the planets?

I vote yes, and also add Eris, and maybe Sedna.
It doesn't make sense to me to just arbitrarily decide everything after Neptune can't be a planet.

adjl posted...

This is the big thing. Either Pluto isn't a planet, or we add another 2-3 dwarf planets to the roster of planets. Those are the only two options. There's no objective basis for only bringing back Pluto.

2-3? More like 15. 16 if you include Ceres, which was classified as a planet for 50 years. Pluto was a "planet" for not much longer, 76 years.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/c/c75429aa.jpg
Note that 11 of these have moons; Haumea has two.

it's still a planet, it's even in the name.

SinisterSlay posted...

I vote yes, and also add Eris, and maybe Sedna.
It doesn't make sense to me to just arbitrarily decide everything after Neptune can't be a planet.

Pluto and Eris, as well as every other known Kuiper Belt object, are actually smaller than Neptune's biggest moon Triton and much smaller than Mercury. Any cutoff between planet and dwarf planet was by its nature going to be somewhat arbitrary but they seem to have picked a reasonable point.

If anything is ever found out in the Kuiper Belt to be Mars-sized or larger there will probably be another discussion to be had over it but that's looking less likely as time goes on.

Damn_Underscore posted...

Are they worried elementary school students will have a harder time memorizing the planets?

I don't think anyone making these decisions really cares how easy it is for elementary students to memorize the planets, just like they don't care about whether or not adults who learned that Pluto was a planet when they were in school can keep believing that instead of updating their understanding of the universe (which, let's be real, is the issue most people have with Pluto's declassification).

MICHALECOLE posted...

Seems like something trump would try to do and republicans would get all excited about

Honestly, yeah. It overtly appeals to people who only ever want to understand as much science as they learned as children (see also: transphobes), and would be seen as sticking it to "big science" for trying to push new "agendas." I won't be at all surprised if we see an EO for this at some point when he feels he needs a popularity boost.

captpackrat posted...

2-3? More like 15. 16 if you include Ceres, which was classified as a planet for 50 years.

There you go, even worse. I haven't particularly paid attention to the issue since the early days when it was just Eris and something that was just a number at the time that were getting lumped in with Pluto, but I'm not surprised there are more things that better fit a classification of "dwarf planet" than there were 20 years ago.

I'm also just realizing that I recently passed the point where Pluto has been declassified as a planet for a greater portion of my life than it counted as one. That's kind of wild.

Yes. For sentimentality's sake alone, I want it to be a planet. I don't care that it doesn't suit the scientific definition.

Gobstoppers12 posted...

Yes. For sentimentality's sake alone, I want it to be a planet. I don't care that it doesn't suit the scientific definition.

It would have to be called a double planet, as the barycenter of the Pluto-Charon system is well above the surface of Pluto. The nearest comparison is the Earth-Moon system, which has a barycenter well under Earth's surface.

willythemailboy posted...

It would have to be called a double planet, as the barycenter of the Pluto-Charon system is well above the surface of Pluto. The nearest comparison is the Earth-Moon system, which has a barycenter well under Earth's surface.

Pluto and his cool brother can both come, that's fine. Ten planets is way better than eight.

Pluto did nothing wrong.

adjl posted...

This is the big thing. Either Pluto isn't a planet, or we add another 2-3 dwarf planets to the roster of planets. Those are the only two options. There's no objective basis for only bringing back Pluto.

Not really. The current definition is arbitrary, the previous definition was somewhat arbitrary, and any potential future definition would also be somewhat arbitrary. It wouldn't be that difficult to create an arbitrary definition that exists outside of that binary.

It's basically a "Man is a featherless biped (with broad flat nails)" scenario. The only real problem is one that the IAU itself created (and it's telling that plenty of people in the IAU as well as other astronomers never agreed with the eventual compromise in the first place).

Though all of that being said, perhaps the better question might be, why shouldn't Eris be considered a planet? Plenty of people were willing to accept it at one point or another. It fails the same criteria that Pluto does - but there's significant pushback on that specific criteria both within and without the field of astronomy. There's no objective reason why either or both couldn't still be considered planets.

But perhaps the best possible argument is that Neil deGrasse Tyson prefers the current status quo, and Neil deGrasse Tyson is kind of an asshole. So we should definitely change it.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

But perhaps the best possible argument is that Neil deGrasse Tyson prefers the current status quo, and Neil deGrasse Tyson is kind of an asshole. So we should definitely change it.

honestly i feel that. guy's way too arrogant about shit even when he's right. he's like the piratesoftware of science

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Though all of that being said, perhaps the better question might be, why shouldn't Eris be considered a planet?

Why stop there? There are 9 trans-Neptunian objects (10 if Charon is included as a separate planet) and Ceres in the asteroid belt all above 800km in diameter.

For perspective, there are 15 moons above that diameter (16 if Charon is counted as a moon).

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Not really. The current definition is arbitrary, the previous definition was somewhat arbitrary, and any potential future definition would also be somewhat arbitrary. It wouldn't be that difficult to create an arbitrary definition that exists outside of that binary.

You could, but choosing an arbitrary definition solely for the sake of pandering to laypersons' nostalgia for studying the solar system when they were kids isn't really a great way to define things in science.

That, and it's not strictly arbitrary. There are many ways in which pluto and other dwarf planets do not resemble full planets, but they do share a significant number of common traits with each other. The most salient distinction is that they're too small to have cleared their orbits of planetesimals (small chunks of debris left over from when planets were forming), which I think is a pretty reasonable way to define things. Picking a size measurement to go along with that is quasi-arbitrary, but the question of "is this planet candidate the dominant object in its orbit?" makes a lot of sense as a criterion.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Though all of that being said, perhaps the better question might be, why shouldn't Eris be considered a planet? Plenty of people were willing to accept it at one point or another. It fails the same criteria that Pluto does - but there's significant pushback on that specific criteria both within and without the field of astronomy. There's no objective reason why either or both couldn't still be considered planets.

Oh, I agree. I presented those two options as options that I would be perfectly happy with either way. Eris could be added as a planet, and in fact the IAU discussion that ultimately resulted in the dwarf planet classification was specifically looking at adding Eris, Charon, and Ceres to the list of planets because there was a reasonable case to be made for doing so if Pluto was to be considered a planet. The case for not making them planets was because they're so dissimilar from every other non-Pluto planet, which then led down the path of "Pluto is just as dissimilar and therefore also shouldn't count."

The point I'm making isn't that Eris et al shouldn't be considered planets, it's that if you want to use consistent definitions that haven't been designed specifically to cut into the sales of pro-Pluto bumper stickers, you have to either cut Pluto out or add a bunch of new planets. The nostalgic "there are nine planets" that people pine for isn't really a legitimate option except to pander to those people.

willythemailboy posted...

Why stop there? There are 9 trans-Neptunian objects (10 if Charon is included as a separate planet) and Ceres in the asteroid belt all above 800km in diameter.

True, though Ceres fails a different criteria than Pluto does (and Eris). So changing things to keep Pluto as a planet doesn't automatically validate Ceres.

But I don't disagree that we could potentially reevaluate the whole mess. We could probably come up with better definitions given enough time, but ultimately no matter what definitions we use we're still drawing an arbitrary line somewhere.

What if it just has an atmosphere then it's a planet?
Although then I guess the sun counts, nevermind

SinisterSlay posted...

What if it just has an atmosphere then it's a planet?
Although then I guess the sun counts, nevermind

And Mercury doesn't.

captpackrat posted...

And Mercury doesn't.

I am not very smart, but I think the wiki is saying it does?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Mercury#:~:text=The%20existence%20of%20a%20Mercurian,discovered%20only%20a%20tenuous%20exosphere.

From the page for Exosphere: "Mercury, Ceres and several large natural satellites, such as the Moon, Europa, and Ganymede, have exospheres without a denser atmosphere underneath,[3] referred to as a surface boundary exosphere"

Basically, an exosphere is the barest suggestion of an atmosphere, and if just having that is enough to make something a planet, a whole lot of not-planets would be considered planets.

SinisterSlay posted...

I am not very smart, but I think the wiki is saying it does?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Mercury#:~:text=The%20existence%20of%20a%20Mercurian,discovered%20only%20a%20tenuous%20exosphere.

For context, the Moon has an atmosphere 10x thicker than that, and Pluto has an atmosphere roughly a million times thicker.

If Pluto is a planet, then we potentially have hundreds of planets in our system. So far, five dwarf planets have been officially confirmed, six strong candidates are awaiting confirmation, six more are likely candidates (we don't have enough data, but they look promising), and eight objects that could be dwarf planets have been discovered (very limited data). Future telescopes and space missions will likely confirm more dwarf planets in the coming years. Astronomers estimate that there could be hundreds of dwarf planets that are yet to be discovered.

Yes.

adjl posted...

This is the big thing. Either Pluto isn't a planet, or we add another 2-3 dwarf planets to the roster of planets. Those are the only two options. There's no objective basis for only bringing back Pluto.

Earth is a dwarf planet. It just sounds bad so they marginalize Pluto and friends instead.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Not really. The current definition is arbitrary, the previous definition was somewhat arbitrary, and any potential future definition would also be somewhat arbitrary. It wouldn't be that difficult to create an arbitrary definition that exists outside of that binary.

It's basically a "Man is a featherless biped (with broad flat nails)" scenario. The only real problem is one that the IAU itself created (and it's telling that plenty of people in the IAU as well as other astronomers never agreed with the eventual compromise in the first place).

Though all of that being said, perhaps the better question might be, why shouldn't Eris be considered a planet? Plenty of people were willing to accept it at one point or another. It fails the same criteria that Pluto does - but there's significant pushback on that specific criteria both within and without the field of astronomy. There's no objective reason why either or both couldn't still be considered planets.

But perhaps the best possible argument is that Neil deGrasse Tyson prefers the current status quo, and Neil deGrasse Tyson is kind of an asshole. So we should definitely change it.

Wat.

MICHALECOLE posted...

Seems like something trump would try to do and republicans would get all excited about

This summarizes thier ideas and policies so perfectly. They would do this 100% and be absolutely certain every step of the way they were crushing the "woke left" who were trying to trying to "make up thier own science" by making it a non planet to begin with.

They would do the same if one started introducing those other dwarf planets as real planets afterwards.

no
it's too small

Revelation34 posted...

Wat.

he pontificates a lot, especially about things outside of his area of expertise. kind of like dr oz but he isn't actually evil, just obnoxious

there's tons of first hand stories about him being really condescending when correcting people, too, and you can kind of see it in interviews

https://x.com/neiltyson/status/1153247143756537857 it's shit like this that just makes your eyes roll. it's a goddamn children's movie man. plus there's a plot reason for it to be like that, it's a nordic symbol and they were foreshadowing shit

it never should have stopped being a planet

If the sailor scout didn't have to be renamed, the planet was just fine as it was.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVM1IN_dmS8

Olld-Onne posted...

Yes.

Earth is a dwarf planet. It just sounds bad so they marginalize Pluto and friends instead.

quite a difference between Pluto and Earth

it's a no from me

agesboy posted...

he pontificates a lot, especially about things outside of his area of expertise. kind of like dr oz but he isn't actually evil, just obnoxious

there's tons of first hand stories about him being really condescending when correcting people, too, and you can kind of see it in interviews

https://x.com/neiltyson/status/1153247143756537857 it's shit like this that just makes your eyes roll. it's a goddamn children's movie man. plus there's a plot reason for it to be like that, it's a nordic symbol and they were foreshadowing shit

meh anyone butthurt over a nerd being nerdy cracks me up.

agesboy posted...

he pontificates a lot, especially about things outside of his area of expertise. kind of like dr oz but he isn't actually evil, just obnoxious

there's tons of first hand stories about him being really condescending when correcting people, too, and you can kind of see it in interviews

https://x.com/neiltyson/status/1153247143756537857 it's shit like this that just makes your eyes roll. it's a goddamn children's movie man. plus there's a plot reason for it to be like that, it's a nordic symbol and they were foreshadowing shit

You ever thought that he might just be making a joke?

KingDavid posted...

You ever thought that he might just be making a joke?

There is more than enough precedent to come to the conclusion that no, he is not making a joke.

Even if it were a joke, it's an "I'm so much smarter than you and only people as smart as I will understand this joke" joke

willythemailboy posted...

It's barely even the biggest TNO out there, but it is also the closest. I get why people feel like it should be a planet but by any reasonable standard it shouldn't. There's no argument anyone could make for Pluto to be a planet but Eris not to be.

And for another hot take I'd like to see the definition of a moon updated to exclude things that are not much bigger than a shoebox.

Really? The only qualification between Planet and Moon is size? What the fuck kind of qualification is that?

Does it orbit a star? It's a planet.
Does it orbit another celestial body? It's a moon.

It should be as simple as that. Size is irrelevant.

King Kai's planet is a planet confirmed

Trump is going to claim Pluto as a planet and harvest its resources.

Salrite posted...

Really? The only qualification between Planet and Moon is size? What the fuck kind of qualification is that?

Does it orbit a star? It's a planet.
Does it orbit another celestial body? It's a moon.

It should be as simple as that. Size is irrelevant.

eh, the categorization he employs is more logical. unfortunately, when we create categories, there are inherently going to be those 'fuzzy' edge cases. it feels arbitrary because it is, but there needs to be a place where the line is drawn otherwise we're going to be qualifying trillions of objects as planets based on your criteria.

Salrite posted...

Does it orbit a star? It's a planet.
Does it orbit another celestial body? It's a moon.

It should be as simple as that. Size is irrelevant.

Does that mean that stars in binary systems are planets? Or that every object in the asteroid belt is a planet? Is Pluto Charon's moon? Is every particle that makes up Saturn's rings a moon?

The problem with simple definitions is that the universe is not a simple place. Basing the distinction on size alone gets pretty arbitrary and isn't great, but there's some level of common sense that tells us that an asteroid the size of a potato is not a planet even if it's orbiting a star, and there's room for a more sophisticated definition that relates to size without actually being an arbitrary measurement. The question of whether or not the object has cleared its orbit (which was ultimately the basis for Pluto's demotion) seems like a very reasonable basis for the definition to me: defining a planet as an object that orbits a star and is the dominant object in that orbit makes a lot of sense. Objects that share their orbit with a significant amount of smaller debris that they aren't massive enough to collect or disperse don't make sense to count as planets, and calling them "dwarf planets" to differentiate them from that debris is an effective way to establish them as significant without conflating them with a category they don't really belong in.

In order for an object to be a planet, it must follow three criteria.

1. It must orbit a star.
2. It must be big enough to have enough gravity to force it into a spherical shape.
3. It must be big enough that its gravity has cleared away any other objects of a similar size near its orbit around the star.

The third one was added when astronomers realized we potentially had hundreds of planets in our system. They had to demote Pluto or promote more objects to planets and regularly add more to the list whenever new ones were discovered and confirmed. They came up with the third criteria to resolve the issue. In addition, they created a new category for objects that follow the first two criteria but not the third one. This new category is dwarf planet, which is what Pluto is now. The other objects officially recognized as dwarf planets by most, if not all, astronomers are Ceres, Eris, Haumea, Makemake, Quaoar, Sedna, Orcus, Gonggong, and Salacia.

It was Eris's discovery as the "tenth planet" that sparked the discussion about what defines a planet. Ceres was long considered a planet before it was demoted to asteroid. Astronomers realized that when Pluto was later discovered, classifying it as a planet was an arbitrary decision. If Pluto was a planet, then Ceres should never have been demoted. There was no clear definition, so they had to make one and stick with it.

ReturnOfFa posted...

quite a difference between Pluto and Earth

it's a no from me

Eh if Pluto had life like Earth it would be called a planet.

Also we need actual names for the sun and moon.

dj1200 posted...

Trump is going to claim Pluto as a planet and harvest its resources.

He's going to strip mine all the plutonium.

Accrovideogames posted...

In order for an object to be a planet, it must follow three criteria.
1. It must orbit a star.
2. It must be big enough to have enough gravity to force it into a spherical shape.
3. It must be big enough that its gravity has cleared away any other objects of a similar size near its orbit around the star.
The third one was added when astronomers realized we potentially had hundreds of planets in our system. They had to demote Pluto or promote more objects to planets and regularly add more to the list whenever new ones were discovered and confirmed. They came up with the third criteria to resolve the issue. In addition, they created a new category for objects that follow the first two criteria but not the third one. This new category is dwarf planet, which is what Pluto is now. The other objects officially recognized as dwarf planets by most, if not all, astronomers are Ceres, Eris, Haumea, Makemake, Quaoar, Sedna, Orcus, Gonggong, and Salacia.

It was Eris's discovery as the "tenth planet" that sparked the discussion about what defines a planet. Ceres was long considered a planet before it was demoted to asteroid. Astronomers realized that when Pluto was later discovered, classifying it as a planet was an arbitrary decision. If Pluto was a planet, then Ceres should never have been demoted. There was no clear definition, so they had to make one and stick with it.

There's a major difference between demoting something from a planet to an asteroid and demoting something from a planet to dwarf planet.

Revelation34 posted...

There's a major difference between demoting something from a planet to an asteroid and demoting something from a planet to dwarf planet.

And that difference is about 150 years of refining our understanding of astronomy. At the time that Ceres was considered a planet (~1801-1851), we didn't even have a concrete definition for "planet" and the term "asteroid" had only just been invented to describe the class of objects that people kept finding in Ceres' neighbourhood (now known to be the asteroid belt). A lot changed between the 1850's and 2006.

No, unless a bunch of others get it too