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[-] Kyrgizion@lemmy.world 79 points 6 months ago

Pluto will always be a planet to me, and you'll pry that definition from my cold, dead hands!

[-] kbal@fedia.io 48 points 6 months ago

Stay strong. A dwarf planet is a perfectly valid kind of planet, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

[-] Neato@ttrpg.network 30 points 6 months ago

It's not the size that counts but the ability to clear your orbit. ;)

[-] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 4 points 6 months ago
[-] Neato@ttrpg.network 10 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Good question! I had forgotten about Jupiter's Trojans and Greek asteroids!

I went and checked the definiton of Clearing the Neighborhood by IAU, emphasis mine:

The phrase refers to an orbiting body (a planet or protoplanet) "sweeping out" its orbital region over time, by gravitationally interacting with smaller bodies nearby. Over many orbital cycles, a large body will tend to cause small bodies either to accrete with it, or to be disturbed to another orbit, or to be captured either as a satellite or into a resonant orbit. As a consequence it does not then share its orbital region with other bodies of significant size, except for its own satellites, or other bodies governed by its own gravitational influence. This latter restriction excludes objects whose orbits may cross but that will never collide with each other due to orbital resonance, such as Jupiter and its trojans, Earth and 3753 Cruithne, or Neptune and the plutinos.[3] As to the extent of orbit clearing required, Jean-Luc Margot emphasises "a planet can never completely clear its orbital zone, because gravitational and radiative forces continually perturb the orbits of asteroids and comets into planet-crossing orbits" and states that the IAU did not intend the impossible standard of impeccable orbit clearing.[2]

Trojans and Greeks orbit Jupiter's LaGrange points in a stable orbit and so they are governed by Jupiter's gravity. You could say they're really weird moons orbiting semi-stable points Jupiter creates.

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[-] anarchrist@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 6 months ago

Does it dig mines and sing upbeat work songs?

[-] dumpsterlid@lemmy.world 4 points 6 months ago

ROCK AND STONE…….. and orbits

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[-] BakerBagel@midwest.social 36 points 6 months ago

Arenyou gonna start calling Ceres, Haumea, Makemake, and Orcus planets?

We went through this 150 years ago ehen the asteroid belt was discovered. Every astronomer wanted credit for discovering a new planet, so at one point there were 15 before all the astronomers got together and said it was untenable.

[-] Ultraviolet@lemmy.world 12 points 6 months ago

Yes. We could have had a planet Orcus and we were like "nah, we'll pass." That would have been metal as shit.

[-] DigitalDruid@lemmy.sdf.org 35 points 6 months ago

without orbital dominance?

amazon.com ass planet with fake reviews.

[-] nxdefiant@startrek.website 14 points 6 months ago

So Neptune has a rogue rock in its orbit that also orbits the sun and we're just gonna give Neptune a pass on that one because we saw it first.

At best, this is size discrimination, and neptunotism, and we both know it!

[-] meleethecat@lemmy.world 8 points 6 months ago

Look, just be careful that you don’t confuse proplutoism with antineptunotism.

[-] Thcdenton@lemmy.world 6 points 6 months ago

Yeah but it's delivered with a nice hand written note from a single mom in China so I 5 star anyways.

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[-] tacosanonymous@lemm.ee 13 points 6 months ago
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[-] MonkderDritte@feddit.de 7 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Whatever, Pluto is a dwarf planet like every other dwarf planet too.

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[-] Carrolade@lemmy.world 71 points 6 months ago

You know, this post made me realize something. Some people are viewing it in terms of "rank", instead of an arbitrary scientific classification designed to efficiently communicate ideas in a clear and concise way.

It's like ... mythology or something, and the planet(oid) being anthropomorphized.

Do people also view kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species as "ranks" of some sort, with some intrinsically greater value being given to some over others?

[-] Squorlple@lemmy.world 16 points 6 months ago

It’s like … mythology or something, and the planet(oid) being anthropomorphized.

I mean, the planet(oid)s are named after gods.

The personification of its classification is probably related to the exclusivity of the title and “bigger is better” mentality. Since every life form has a taxonomy for domain to species, there’s not really an exclusivity to each echelon. I don’t imagine anybody really thinks like this meme below, for example:

[-] Carrolade@lemmy.world 7 points 6 months ago

This makes me want to devise a tiered, inclusive classification scheme for space objects.

We could start with orbital objects, any object that normally experiences regular, periodic orbits with minimal deviation. So, everything in the galaxy would be one except potentially Sag A, and the galaxy itself. Perhaps the next branching subsets could be things undergoing continuous fusion somewhere in their body or not?

[-] GregorGizeh@lemmy.zip 9 points 6 months ago

Do people also view kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species as "ranks" of some sort, with some intrinsically greater value being given to some over others?

Well, for humans we most certainly do

[-] Carrolade@lemmy.world 4 points 6 months ago

So, "homo" is better than "sapiens"? And "animal" is better than homo sapiens?

Or do I have it backwards, and "lower" ranks are better? So, "pinus ponderosa" would be better than "plant"?

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[-] shneancy@lemmy.world 4 points 6 months ago

I think it'll matter a bit more once (if) we get to explore our solar system for real. I feel like right now the concept of "planet" is still rather distant in our minds and a lot of people just base it on vibes

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[-] wildcardology@lemmy.world 40 points 6 months ago

Damnit who let Elon name that planet?

[-] sirico@feddit.uk 35 points 6 months ago

When ever Eris isn't on screen everyone should be asking "Where's Eris?"

[-] AlolanYoda@mander.xyz 34 points 6 months ago

"Where is Eris? Is it safe? Is it all right?"

"It appears that, in your anger... You classified it as a dwarf planet."

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

[-] Squorlple@lemmy.world 6 points 6 months ago

Hmmm… Lost a planet Obi-Wan has. How embarrassing.

[-] Scubus@sh.itjust.works 5 points 6 months ago

Our Ceres is perfectly legal

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[-] xia@lemmy.sdf.org 33 points 6 months ago

The planet formerly known as twitter.

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[-] Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 24 points 6 months ago

aint no planet x coming cause aint no space cuz aint not globe earth

[-] shadearg@lemmy.world 12 points 6 months ago

aint no birds flying cause aint no worms cuz aint not soil earth

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[-] Deebster@programming.dev 17 points 6 months ago

Imagine how poor Pluto would feel if we decided this new entry counted as a proper planet.

[-] RandomWalker@lemmy.world 20 points 6 months ago

Nah, man. Pluto doesn’t care any more. Even as a dwarf planet, he knows he’s still hot shit

[-] dumpsterlid@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

Pluto is the celestial body your Wife tells you not to worry about because “Oh, don’t worry it’s just Pluto coming over when you are out of town, and Pluto isn’t a planet so there is nothing for you to get anxious or jealous about”.

[-] Cornelius_Wangenheim@lemmy.world 8 points 6 months ago

It'd have to be exceptionally large to clear its orbital path at that distance from the sun. It'll probably join Pluto in the dwarf planet category.

[-] Norgur@fedia.io 5 points 6 months ago

He should pull himself up by his bootstraps and get his Alpha Planet grindset on. No one can be a proper planet with this Sigma Planet mindset

[-] someacnt_@lemmy.world 10 points 6 months ago

Is planet X really discovered?

[-] bstix@feddit.dk 37 points 6 months ago

They found more evidence for its existence recently, but no. Nobody has ever seen it or even found out in which direction to look. The evidence is that the other planets move in ways that only makes sense if there is some mass somewhere pulling their orbits.

Sort of like having to discover the moon from watching the tides in the sea.

[-] DigitalDruid@lemmy.sdf.org 12 points 6 months ago

this method is how we discovered Neptune and Pluto and many exoplanets. Kepler's laws are extremely specific about orbits, so once you pin down the disturbances the planet makes you significantly narrow down the places it can be.

[-] marcos@lemmy.world 9 points 6 months ago

Yes, but that new evidence is way less distinguishable from noise than the one for Neptune.

At this point, the most likely is that there isn't anything there.

[-] Alexstarfire@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago

Can we just send someone to check it out? Stop being lazy.

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[-] someacnt_@lemmy.world 4 points 6 months ago

Thought there were some significant progress..

[-] dumpsterlid@lemmy.world 13 points 6 months ago

Well we figured out where to look for it, and it is definitely the sky. We tried looking the last place we left it, and then we looked all around the basement from top to bottom. Yup, we can say with confidence folks, Planet X is hiding somewhere above us.

[-] bstix@feddit.dk 4 points 6 months ago

Yeah well, not really. Next year maybe, according to the article linked yesterday.

https://lemmy.world/post/14670867

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[-] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 7 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I saw it named planet 9

Named so here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_Nine

Planet X

~~Ceres~~ and Eris didn’t even get turns being planets

[-] diverging@lemmy.ml 7 points 6 months ago

Ceres was considered a planet in the first half of the 1800's, along with a bunch of things in the asteroid belt. There was a point where there were 64 planets.

In the present state of knowledge astronomers give us the following list:
Sixty-four "primary planets" revolving round the Sun as our Earth does.
Twenty satellites, including our Moon.
Of the sixty-four primary planets fifty-six are asteroids, comparatively small bodies, all of which were discovered in this century, and fifty-two since the year 1844.]

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this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2024
510 points (96.4% liked)

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