Comments

1
Pluto isn't a planet. Deal with it.
2
Ditto. Ask an Astronomer (I am one), not a science blogger.
3
@1 Neither is Neptune; let me know when it has cleared it's orbital path of that big dumb asteroid.
4
Eris Sedna Makemake Haumea and Quaoar are planets too!

I think that the argument that there will be too many planets if we count Pluto as a planet is dumb. Who ever heard of too many planets? That's crazy.

I can't wait till we find a Mars sized Kuipier Belt object. Here that astronomers? Get cracking.
5
Funny that no one ever cries for Charon - it's half as big as Pluto, and the two worlds orbit each other.

@3, Earth hasn't "cleared it's [sic] orbital path", either, but Neptune's sure had a lot of effect on the Kuiper belt objects, like Eris, a dwarf planet which is larger than Pluto.
6
Well, if they had named it "Goofy," I'd be all in favor of it being a planet, but Pluto was just dumb.
7
Perhaps comments should read his book instead of relying on a paraphrased sentence before passing judgment on Pluto?

I have. It's a great read about science, politics, emotions, and history. And he makes a case for a lot more planets than Pluto!

Pluto is a planet more or less because of money and obsession.
8
Pluto is lazy, and drinks all day. Everyone knows it. It's a wonder Pluto stayed a planet for a long as it did.
9
Pluto is a planet the way Pete Best is a Beatle.
10
Exactly what planet? The other call what? How do we go to distinguish? Is there a way? Still rote recall?
11
All this "Pluto is a planet" bullshit strikes me as being a lot like creationism or intelligent design. The first sentence of the summary of this book at Amazon says "When the International Astronomical Union voted in 2006 to evict Pluto from the roster of planets in our solar system, little did they expect the public outcry that would arise." Replace the first half of that sentence with something about Darwin and evolution, and you have classic Creationist material.

Either Ceres, Pluto, Eris, Haumea, and Makemake are planets, or they're not -- Pluto doesn't have any particularly special status, except having been discovered 75 years before Eris (which is 27% larger than Pluto). I'm quite happy to think of Pluto as still being a planet, since in "dwarf planet" there's still the word "planet". But I also think that giving Pluto special status robs us of the rather amazing reality that the long-hypothesized "tenth planet" -- now known as Eris -- was just discovered in 2005.
12
Pluto is a planet, and I encourage everyone to read Boyle's excellent book to learn why. Charon is either a satellite planet (a moon large enough to be rounded by its own gravity) or one of a binary planet system, as the center of mass between Pluto and Charon is between the two bodies rather than inside Pluto.

The term dwarf planet was created by Dr. Alan Stern, Principal Investigator of the New Horizons mission to Pluto, to indicate a third class of planets in addition to terrestrials and jovians--small planets large enough to be rounded by their own gravity (in hydrostatic equilibrium) but not large enough to gravitationally dominate their orbits. He never intended for dwarf planets to be considered not planets at all, yet that is what four percent of the IAU, most of whom are not planetary scientists, decreed. Their decision was immediately opposed in a formal petition by hundreds of professional astronomers. This is nothing like the creationism issue, as we are dealing with the attempt to impose one interpretation as fact rather than with a clear cut right and wrong. The scientists who favor a broader planet definition believe a planet is a non-self-luminous spheroidal body orbiting a star. Yes, that makes Ceres, Haumea, Makemake, and Eris planets too. Artificially limiting the number of planets to keep it small enough for memorization is not science. If our solar systm has 50 planets, then that is what it has.

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