If we start recognizing distant chunks of ice with eccentric orbit as planets, then before you know it, oblongs slabs of iron ore will want to be planets, too. Then what? Two chunks of iron and a hunk of ice? Why not four chunks of iron, a chunk of ice, and a Sputnik heat shield? I think God intended planets to be one sphere, enveloped in gases, with or without rings.
If a permanent atmosphere is requirement, then we're down to 7 planets, because Mercury is out too. It's obvious that we need a new category that covers everything that's not a planet, asteroid, or comet. Ceres, and maybe a few of the bigger asteroids can join this new group, along with Pluto, Sedna, 2003 UB313 and the rest. It always did bother me to call Ceres an asteroid because it's round like a planet. And Han Solo clearly taught me that asteroids are little irregular things with worms who have pressurized stomachs full of flying parasites inside them.
For those of you who are unaware, a group of astronomers is attempting to hash out a definition of "planet" that everyone can agree on. The central problem seems to be this: the "folk definition" of planet includes 9 objects, the smallest of which is Pluto. But any useful scientific definition of planet either excludes Pluto, or includes a whole bunch of other objects that people don't want to think of as planets (the "no iceball left behind" definition).
It seems like the most sensible definition would be one that excludes Pluto, but then there are all these whiners who for "emotional reasons" want Pluto classified as a planet. They learned there were 9 planets in elementary school, and are unable to endure the neurological re-wiring it would take to change that number to 8.
My opinion: screw the whiners. If someone wants to have a highly emotional relationship with a chunk of ice with an eccentric orbit, that's fine. Just don't expect the scientific community to cater to your fetish by twisting the definition of "planet" into something ridiculous.
posted by Zachary Drake at 10:29 PM on Aug 23, 2006
""If you say Pluto's not a planet, I will cry like a baby""
3 Comments -
If we start recognizing distant chunks of ice with eccentric orbit as planets, then before you know it, oblongs slabs of iron ore will want to be planets, too. Then what? Two chunks of iron and a hunk of ice? Why not four chunks of iron, a chunk of ice, and a Sputnik heat shield? I think God intended planets to be one sphere, enveloped in gases, with or without rings.
5:02 AM, August 24, 2006
If a permanent atmosphere is requirement, then we're down to 7 planets, because Mercury is out too. It's obvious that we need a new category that covers everything that's not a planet, asteroid, or comet. Ceres, and maybe a few of the bigger asteroids can join this new group, along with Pluto, Sedna, 2003 UB313 and the rest. It always did bother me to call Ceres an asteroid because it's round like a planet. And Han Solo clearly taught me that asteroids are little irregular things with worms who have pressurized stomachs full of flying parasites inside them.
4:49 PM, August 24, 2006
http://www.lyricsdir.com/2-skinnee-js-pluto-lyrics.html
6:39 AM, August 25, 2006