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submitted 7 months ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to c/science_memes@mander.xyz

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[-] dQw4w9WgXcQ@lemm.ee 0 points 7 months ago

The "big" deal is that a ton of celestial bodies of comparable size to pluto would have to be considered either as planets or as general debris. Finding a clear definition which would include pluto as a planet and not include other stuff would be very impractical and possibly nearly impossible.

But the biggest fuck up was to name a non-planet a "dwarf planet".

[-] Olhonestjim@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I'm well aware of the existence of countless dwarf planets in the solar system, and the naming issues that arose from the discovery.

I don't mind that they called them dwarf planets. But I don't know why everyone got so upset about it. It sounds like just another class of planet to me, which seems quite appropriate.

I agree that they marketed the change about as poorly as they could.

[-] dQw4w9WgXcQ@lemm.ee 1 points 7 months ago

Sure, people have taken the matter way too personal. That's mostly people who have a nostalgic relationship to their childhood classes about "the 9 planets".

As I've read, they made the definition in the particular way to remove gray areas of inaccurate meassurements. A celestial body shouldn't be wrongly classified due to being a few kilometres larger than some limit, then be reclassified later due to better meassurements. Planets need to be somewhat spherical, orbit a star and clear their orbit from significant debris. They made a great system which doesn't leave big gray areas. A planet is defined in a well thought out way by people way smarter than me.

And then they go and call the non-planets "dwarf planets".