The Telegraph has an article/obituary for Venetia Phair who, when she was 11 years old, suggested the name for Pluto. I suppose at this point we can say she was the first person to name an intact Kuiper Belt Object (as opposed to ones that may be moons of planets now).
Ms. Phair was 90 years old, and lived to see the name "Pluto" picked up by the astronomical community (and Disney as well). And whether or not Pluto ever becomes a planet again, I was pleased to see in the article that an asteroid was named after her. So no matter what, her name — and her naming — will live on.
May 8th, 2009 at 11:10 am
If Pluto cannot be a planet can it at least be something other than a “Kuiper Belt Object”? How about a “kuiperon”?
May 8th, 2009 at 11:18 am
A woman was named Pluto? Cool!
May 8th, 2009 at 11:22 am
I believe that Pluto (the Disney character) predates the discovery of the planet, er, dwarf plan.., uh, KBO.
- Jack
May 8th, 2009 at 11:26 am
rest in peace. no small feat in one lifetime to name a planet (even if planet status is argued) and get an asteroid named for you too!! i’d settle for an asteroid
May 8th, 2009 at 11:41 am
Is it particularly bad of me that, when I read the article, on mention of Phobos and Deimos, my mind immediately leaps to visions of fireball-launching imps, and mechanic spiders shooting rockets…
Bad, bad Hugh…
May 8th, 2009 at 11:48 am
Maybe it was the trauma of seeing of seeing her planet get demoted that finally finished her off.
May 8th, 2009 at 11:54 am
I always considered her a very lucky person. Now I find out she has an asteroid named after her too. Weird thinking she was 90. I’ve only ever seen the picture of her as a girl. Rest in peace.
May 8th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Asteroid 6235 Burney is named in her honor. Burney was her maiden name. In the story Phil linked too above:
“Although largely indifferent to the debate, she confessed that she would have preferred it to have remained a planet…She was vexed by suggestions that she had named Pluto after the Disney cartoon dog, which also appeared in 1930 – but it was clear that the dog had been named after the planet, rather than the other way round.”
BTW – “Venetia Phair” would be a cool name for a future spacecraft.
May 8th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
BTW – “Venetia Phair” would be a cool name for a future spacecraft.
Sorry, I can’t help but hear Michael Palin as Pontius Pilate from “Life of Brian.”
“He hath a wife, you know. Her name ith Venetia. Venetia…Phair.”
May 8th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
Didn’t Roxy Music write a hit song about her?
May 8th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Pluto is a Dwarf Planet, along with several other unusually large, rocky objects. I believe that the decision to reclassify pluto was the right one. Pluto and the other Dwarf Plaents were clearly much different than planets, and if we kept on classifying everything around pluto size and with pluto characteristics as planets we’d have a massive list of planets (conservative estimates make it around 40 Dwarf Planets), and only eight would be truly relevant. So the compromise was to name Pluto and Pluto like objects Dwarf Planets, which signifies that they’re both different from asteroids and planets.
May 8th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
Actually, the name of the planet Pluto came first. If you read the article, Venetia named the planet in 1930 and it was adopted on May 1 1930. According to Wikipedia and the Disney Archives the Disney character was not called Pluto until the 1931 cartoon The Moose Hunt.
May 8th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Shouldn’t it be “the woman who named Pluto”.
May 8th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
call them KuBO’s
May 8th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
She also lived to see the naming of element #94; let’s not forget that.
May 8th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
I decided that Pluto was not a planet when it was first described to me in Junior High School several years ago–about 59 years ago IIRC. It just didn’t seem to fit at all with the other planets. Never did, still doesn’t. As Neil DeGrasse Tyson says: “Get over it!”.
May 8th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Pluto still IS a planet, in spite of the controversial demotion by only four percent of the IAU, most of whom are not planetary scientists, a decision immediately opposed in a formal petition of hundreds of professional astronomers led by Dr. Alan Stern, Principal Investigator of NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto.
The reclassification of Pluto was wrong for several reasons. First, the IAU definition makes no linguistic sense, as it states that dwarf planets are not planets at all. That’s like saying a grizzly bear is not a bear. Second, it defines objects solely by where they are while ignoring what they are. If Earth were placed in Pluto’s orbit, by the IAU definition, it would not be a planet. That is because the further away an object is from its parent star, the more difficulty it will have in clearing its orbit.
A second reason the IAU definition makes no sense is that it defines objects solely by where they are while ignoring what they are. If Earth were in Pluto’s orbit, according to the IAU definition, it would not be a planet either. A definition that takes the same object and makes it a planet in one location and not a planet in another is essentially useless. These reasons are why many scientists and lay people are working behind the scenes to get the demotion overturned.
Why do we need to artificially limit the number of planets in our solar system? If the reality is that the sun has 40 planets or 200, then that is what it has. Why not instead establish dwarf planets as a third category of planets, in addition to terrestrial and jovian planets. These objects could be considered planets because, unlike shapeless asteroids, they are large enough to have attained hydrostatic equilibrium, meaning they are pulled into a round shape by their own gravity–a characteristic of planets and not of shapeless asteroids or KBOs. They are of the dwarf subcategory because they are too small to gravitationally dominate their orbits. Making this one change would go a long way toward resolving this ongoing debate.
Even Tyson is now saying it may be too early in the infant field of planetary science to be defining the term planet at all. So bigjohn, I’m not getting over this wrong decision; in fact, I plan on writing a book on why Pluto is in fact a planet–just a different kind of planet.
May 8th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
What, are you going to tell me catfish aren’t really cats? Or that prairie oysters are not really bivalves? Or that Cuban caviar does contain fish eggs? Pygmy hippo is a different species than a regular hippo?
Not, it defines them based on what they do to their surroundings.
Yes, that is because, to the best of our knowledge, an object like Earth could not form out where Pluto is. The definition is based on our understanding of how solar systems form. Of course you could make up any arbitrary configuration of bodies you want, but the definition is meant to reflect how things work in reality as best as we can tell.
I guarantee you that no matter where it was in the solar system, there isn’t a snowball’s chance in Hell that Pluto would ever clear an object the size of Neptune from its orbit. If anything it would be the one flung who knows where. That’s the big issue, its orbit intersects the orbit of an object with a mass 4 orders of magnitude larger.
May 8th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
It can haz a Plutino. [Wikipedia, Kuiper belt.]
If this was biology it would probably constitute the “type exemplar” of that population.
May 8th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
@Romeo Vitelli:
Nah; she didn’t seem upset that Pluto was demoted, after all she still got to name it and future generations will still hear about it, not to mention that all happened so many decades ago; I’m sure she’d moved on and done many other things of interest to her.
May 8th, 2009 at 6:54 pm
Phil, I’m a bit disappointed to hear you repeat the myth that Venetia Phair named Pluto.
It’s not true. Well, it’s a half-truth. She did suggest the name, but she wasn’t the first to do so, and probably the name Pluto would still have been chosen without her. Vesto Slipher chose to give her the credit for it, but that was public relations, not reality.
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003511.html
May 8th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
Sad to hear about Venetia’s death.
Laurel Kornfeld Says:
May 8th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
… I plan on writing a book on why Pluto is in fact a planet–just a different kind of planet.
I second that & whole heartedly agree.
Great idea & best of luck with that book Laurel, I’d buy it – I love your blog!
It seems absolutely clear to me that Pluto is indeed a planet and that dwarf planets are planets all the same – after all our Sun is a dwarf star & we still consider it (along with other dwarf stars eg, Sirius – both Dogstar and Pup, Vega, ALpha Centauri, etc ..) a proper star. Why should we treat dwarf planets any differently?
Besides as I’ve noted many times before the downright stupid IAU ruling actually disqualifies all our solar systems planets as NO planet has entirely cleared its orbit! Recall all those sungrazing comets and asteroids anyone?
The vaguely-defined, anti-Plutonean but of baloney thatis the “Orbital Clearing” criteria fails the logical ‘reductio ad absurdum’ test.
The IAU’s undemocratic Pluto-barring condition also excludes exoplanets entirely and would make it impossible for any double planets to exist – even if two Jupiter-sized planets orbited their common centre of gravity around the one star together *neither* would actually count as a planet under the IAU’s discriminatory diktat!
Nor would Jupiter itself count as a planet if it orbited in the Edgeworth-Kuiper belt. That a planet can be termed a non-planet simply because of where the region of space where it orbits is plain silly and just doesn’t make sense.
I hope the IAU correct this; their worst mistake & lowest moment – one that brings astronomy into disrepute among the general public who all have far more sense than the IAU anti-Plutonean clique – sooner rather than later.
To paraphrase Dr Suess :
A planet’s a planet no matter how small!
May 8th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
Sigh. Italics stuff up. Take II
Sad to hear about Venetia’s death – apity she didn’t live long enough tosee the IAU eat the words ,rescind their Pluto-bashngdecision and apologise to the world and astronomers for their anti-Plutonean moment of stupidity.
@ Laurel Kornfeld :
(May 8th, 2009 at 2:29 pm)
“… I plan on writing a book on why Pluto is in fact a planet–just a different kind of planet.
I second that & whole heartedly agree.
Great idea & best of luck with that book Laurel, I’d buy it – I love your blog!
It seems absolutely clear to me that Pluto is indeed a planet and that dwarf planets are planets all the same – after all our Sun is a dwarf star & we still consider it (along with other dwarf stars eg, Sirius – both Dogstar and Pup, Vega, ALpha Centauri, etc ..) a proper star. Why should we treat dwarf planets any differently?
Besides as I’ve noted many times before the downright stupid IAU ruling actually disqualifies all our solar systems planets as NO planet has entirely cleared its orbit! Recall all those sungrazing comets and asteroids anyone?
The vaguely-defined, anti-Plutonean but of baloney thatis the “Orbital Clearing” criteria fails the logical ‘reductio ad absurdum’ test.
The IAU’s undemocratic Pluto-barring condition also excludes exoplanets entirely and would make it impossible for any double planets to exist – even if two Jupiter-sized planets orbited their common centre of gravity around the one star together *neither* would actually count as a planet under the IAU’s discriminatory diktat!
Nor would Jupiter itself count as a planet if it orbited in the Edgeworth-Kuiper belt. That a planet can be termed a non-planet simply because of where the region of space where it orbits is plain silly and just doesn’t make sense.
I hope the IAU correct this; their worst mistake & lowest moment – one that brings astronomy into disrepute among the general public who all have far more sense than the IAU anti-Plutonean clique – sooner rather than later.
To paraphrase Dr Suess :
A planet’s a planet no matter how small!
——————————————–
PS. For pity’s sake Phil, editing capability here, please!
May 8th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
Incidentally,We also know the smallest exoplanet ever found PSR B 1257+12 e (one of the pulsar planets discovered in 1991) has a truly meager size of less than 1/5th Pluto’s mass – yet is still termed a planet!
Plus, we’ve already found at least one exoplanetary system – HD 45364 b & c – which has planets in the same orbital situation as Neptune & Pluto. Nodoubt withtime we’llfind otherexamples -perhaps even bdouble planets on amajor scale such as my two Jupiter’s example.
Click on my name for a link to that article – Croswell also asks two questions on Pluto – also found via Croswells articles site :
1) How bright would it be if it was in the asteroid belt instead &
2) How bright would the other planets be (would they even be visible to our unaided eyes) if they were located in Pluto’s orit?
The answers are surprisingly revealing and strongly illustrate that, yes, Pluto is indeed a planet!
If the IAU don’t like that they can take a long walk to the edge of Edgeworth-Kuiper belt & not come back.
On this issue the IAU are as wrong as the creationists and anti-vaxxers and for much the same reasons – denying reality for their own nasty ideological purposes.
May 9th, 2009 at 1:07 am
Because that was the decision. They chose the term, it can mean whatever they want it to mean. They could call Pluto a pink snuffleupugus if they wanted, it is their job after all.
Yes, but those are much, much smaller than the planets. Pluto has something almost 4 orders of magnitude more massive in its orbit. All the currently-defined planets in our solar system have no other bodies even an order of magnitude smaller in their orbit. There may be various smaller bodies around, but the gravity of each planet totally dominants its orbit. Even the Earth/Moon system, the closest we have to a “double planet” in this solar system, their shard center of mass is inside the Earth. Pluto’s orbit, however, is dominated by Neptune, just as the asteroids at Earth’s Lagrange points are dominated by it. There is currently no need to define where the cutoff is, since there is no unambiguous case. When we learn more about solar systems we can come up with a more specific definition, but we do not know enough to do that yet.
Of course, we don’t know enough about solar systems besides our own to make a consistent, objective definition. When we know enough to get a general feeling for the consistent properties that solar systems share, then we can start talking about a general definition that applies to all solar systems. But we don’t know enough to do that yet, so the IAU stuck to just defining what we do know: our own solar system.
Correct. So what? There is no such body in our solar system. In fact I am not aware of any such body being detected anywhere (although I if I am wrong please tell me). In fact it may not even be possible for such a body to form. You could come up with a bizarre hypothetical scenario that would break any definition of planet. But unless there is some reason to think that such a system actually exists, then it is irrelevant to making a definition that is intended to be used for defining real things.
Once again, what makes you think such a thing is possible? The whole reason that we have the “clearing its orbit” part of the definition is because our understanding of orbital mechanics (I believe) indicates that a body the IAU considers to be a planet would necessarily clear its orbit. Once again you are coming up with a hypothetical scenario without providing any reason to think that scenario is something that could actually be encountered outside of someone’s imagination.
To give you an example, mammals are agreed to have certain characteristics, for instance they animals that must have two sides to its body (a bilteral animal). Your argument amount to saying that this definition is flawed because an animal with all the properties of a mammal but that has three sides to its body would not be considered a mammal. The objection is nonsense because no such animal exists, nor could it without completely reworking its developmental program (something that cannot happen in nature and remain viable).
Arguing against a definition meant to reflect reality because it cannot deal with imaginary situations that may very well be impossible is nonsense. First you have to establish that the situations you describe could actually occur, then you have to show they do actually occur, then we can talk about fixing the definition. I doubt anyone could come up with a definition that could deal with every situation anyone could come up with. Nor should it, it should only deal with what actually happens.
By that way, what is your proposed definition? What do you think would be better?
May 9th, 2009 at 3:30 am
@ bigjohn756 : (May 8th, 2009 at 2:11 pm)
“As Neil DeGrasse Tyson says: “Get over it!”.
Neil DeGrasse Tyson needs to get over himself!
May 9th, 2009 at 3:34 am
The dude (NDG Tyson) is just up himself – arrogant, rude & unfailry contemptuous of others.
His contempt for planet Pluto & its supporters is offensive, unwarranted and does him & by association all professional astronomers a real dis-service. I cannot imagine Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov or any really decent astronomer & human being being as unfairly dismissive and downright mean as Tyson.:-(
May 9th, 2009 at 3:35 am
The dude (NDG Tyson) is just up himself – arrogant, rude & unfailry contemptuous of others.
His contempt for planet Pluto & its supporters is offensive, unwarranted and does him & by association all professional astronomers a real dis-service. I cannot imagine Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov or any really decent astronomer & human being being as unfairly dismissive and downright mean as Tyson.
May 9th, 2009 at 3:40 am
D’oh! Sorry about the double post.
unfailry = unfairly
Neil DeGrasse Tyson = a snide, mean, arrogant, scientifically and logically wrong fool.
I think Tyson – & theiother IAU following Pluto-bashers – are harming the image of astronomers & making all of us look ridiculous to the public.
Saying Pluto isn’t a planet is absurdly wrong. Period.
May 9th, 2009 at 8:47 am
Astronomers need a clear terminology so that they have a way to communicate with each other. After a whole new class of objects was discovered, it was necessary to set criteria for that class to differentiate them from what are classically called planets. The result was that Pluto fell into the new class.
I am not an astronomer, so my opinion about the classification and terminology is really irrelevant. One could even argue that the word “planet” is inappropriate even for objects such as Saturn and Mars, because it comes from an ancient Greek term that meant “wandering star.” Saturn and Mars are definitely not stars. Even so, Pluto never met the original criterion for being a planet, since it does not appear like a wandering star to the naked eye. It doesn’t even appear to the naked eye at all.
The terminology makes no difference. They could call Saturn and Mars waffles and Pluto and Charon pancakes, and it wouldn’t matter so long as the classification is clear and astronomers can talk about them to each other.
The only people this really affects are textbook publishers and travel agents who book trips to Pluto. I gather there are few people who fit in the second category. The only people who really have a stake in this matter are the Plutonians, if such creatures exist. I’m sure they couldn’t care less what we call it, since Pluto by any other name remains their home.
May 9th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
So was her name Pluto or was it Venetia Phair? : )
May 10th, 2009 at 6:03 am
Laurel Kornfeld said (twice):
“A second reason the IAU definition makes no sense is that it defines objects solely by where they are while ignoring what they are. If Earth were in Pluto’s orbit, according to the IAU definition, it would not be a planet either.”
That’s right. Just like if Mercury were in orbit around Jupiter, it would be called a moon. Where a thing is tells you a lot about what that thing is.
By the way, I suspect Venetia Phair was herself named after a planet (a real one this time: Venus). Has a nice circularity to it.
May 10th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
I found an amusing quote from Isaac Asimov:
May 11th, 2009 at 1:02 am
@ TheBlackCat : (May 9th, 2009 at 1:07 am)
[Me: "Why should we treat dwarf planets any differently from dwarf stars?] Because that was the decision. They chose the term, it can mean whatever they want it to mean. They could call Pluto a pink snuffleupugus if they wanted, it is their job after all.
Well the IAU would be doing the job appallingly *badly* – doing it completely wrong even, if they call Pluto a pink snuffleupagus or anything but what it, in fact, is – a planet!
Yes, but those [Sun-grazing comets and asteroids] are much, much smaller than the planets. Pluto has something almost 4 orders of magnitude more massive in its orbit.
So what? The principle still applies – and Pluto is still a planet just as for instance, Earth would still be a planet if it was in a Pluto-like crossing situation with Jupiter. I don’t see how the mass of Neptune is relevant here. Neptune’s a planet so’s Pluto.
Besides however massive or otherwise sungrazing comets and asteroids are they still exist and still haven’t been cleared from the other planet’s orbits. You can’t say they dont exist just because their small and their existence means logically and by definition the IAU cannot term *any* object in our solar system a “planet”!
All the currently-defined planets in our solar system have no other bodies even an order of magnitude smaller in their orbit. There may be various smaller bodies around, but the gravity of each planet totally dominants its orbit.
Yes, but how far? Pluto too dominates its surroundings out to a certain distance – that’s why it has three moons!
Jupiter controls a larger volume of its orbital space than Earth does. Mars dominates far less space than Earth and so on. I’m not sure why this is relevant or significant. Sure, each planet has its own zone of control – and the more massive planets will have more space affected by their gravity – but why this should define whether something is a planet or non-planet is beyond me.
Example : Mercury is a planet but if it were out in the Edgeworth-Kuiper belt then it too would be unable to dominate its orbit like Neptune does. Would that make it a non-planet? Conversely, put Pluto were Mercury is and Pluto would then dominate its new Mercurian orbit. It just seems utterly silly to define planet in such a way that an object with less space to clear is a planet whilst one with the same mass yet more space to roam in suddenly isn’t a planet anymore.
I don’t think it should matter where a planet is – provided it isn’t a satellite of another body then it should be termed a planet.
Even the Earth/Moon system, the closest we have to a “double planet” in this solar system, their shard center of mass is inside the Earth. Pluto’s orbit, however, is dominated by Neptune, just as the asteroids at Earth’s Lagrange points are dominated by it. There is currently no need to define where the cutoff is, since there is no unambiguous case. When we learn more about solar systems we can come up with a more specific definition, but we do not know enough to do that yet.
You’re forgetting that Pluto *is* currently an ambiguous case. Many astronomers and members of the public have the good sense to ignore the IAU’s ludicrous anti-Plutonian decree.
Of course, we don’t know enough about solar systems besides our own to make a consistent, objective definition. When we know enough to get a general feeling for the consistent properties that solar systems share, then we can start talking about a general definition that applies to all solar systems. But we don’t know enough to do that yet, so the IAU stuck to just defining what we do know: our own solar system.
We’re constantly discovering numerous new exoplanetary systems including one such as HD 45364 the Pluto-Neptune analogue with more massive exoplanets which I mentioned before.
I do think there is enough now known to enable us to define ‘planet’ in a reasonable way.
I do not consider the IAU definition reasonable.
We also know from studying exoplanets – and our own solar system – that yes, planets do gravitationally affect each other and often form in resonances. This does NOT stop them being planets!
[Me : The IAU definition would make it impossible for any double planets to exist - even if two Jupiter-sized planets orbited their common centre of gravity around the one star together *neither* would actually count as a planet under the IAU’s discriminatory diktat!}
Correct. So what?
So the IAU definition is ridiculous that's what!
If you can't call such objects planets even double planets then what are they? "Dwarf planets?" Jupiter-sized dwarf planets? That's just plain silly!
There is no such body in our solar system. In fact I am not aware of any such body being detected anywhere (although I if I am wrong please tell me). In fact it may not even be possible for such a body to form. You could come up with a bizarre hypothetical scenario that would break any definition of planet. But unless there is some reason to think that such a system actually exists, then it is irrelevant to making a definition that is intended to be used for defining real things.
I disagree, hypotheticals such as this one are a reasonable way of trying to come up with a worjkable logical definition thatcovers awide range of potential circumstances. Plus, we do know of many binary stars and binary brown dwarfs. (Epsilon Indi B & C to name one such example, Teide something or other in the Pleiades for another.) It seems to me quite likely and reasonable that the same formation situation will work for Jovian type planets - I see no reason why such objects cannot form in the same way binary stars and brown dwarfs do. Of course being less massive and cooler they're fainter and they will be harder to find but I would fully expect - and predict - that they are out there & we'll one day find them.
[Me : Nor would Jupiter itself count as a planet if it orbited in the Edgeworth-Kuiper belt.]
Once again, what makes you think such a thing is possible?
Fomalhaut b, HR 8799 b,c, & d, 2MASS 1207 b – are all examples of exactly that. These are all very massive Jovian or superjovian planets located at very vast distances from their stars – even further than our Edgeworth-Kuiper belt is located! All these are planets that have been photographed. In at least the first two cases named there, circumstellar dust and debris disks similar to our Edgeworth-Kuiper disk are present so my scenario is not merely hypothetical it actually exists and already clearly shows reality contradicts the IAU Pluto-haters.
The whole reason that we have the “clearing its orbit” part of the definition is because our understanding of orbital mechanics (I believe) indicates that a body the IAU considers to be a planet would necessarily clear its orbit.
So the orbital mechanists need to improve their understanding – NOT exclude Pluto because its existence contradicts their theories! Clearly a planet defined properly does NOT in fact need to “clear its orbit” as Pluto and the HD 45364 system show.
Once again you are coming up with a hypothetical scenario without providing any reason to think that scenario is something that could actually be encountered outside of someone’s imagination.
See my examples above. Consider a bit of reasonable extrapolation and note that such situations do exist and perhaps in greater number than we currently know!
Remember too, Albert Einstein’s famous quote that :
“Imagination is more important than knowledge!”
Arguing against a definition meant to reflect reality because it cannot deal with imaginary situations that may very well be impossible is nonsense. First you have to establish that the situations you describe could actually occur, then you have to show they do actually occur, then we can talk about fixing the definition. I doubt anyone could come up with a definition that could deal with every situation anyone could come up with. Nor should it, it should only deal with what actually happens.
Pluto happens!
So does HD 45364, so does Eposilon Indi b & C – the binary brown dwraf which may be similar only slightly higher in mass to Jupiter-mass binaries. So do Jupiter mass – actually far more than Jupuiter mass – planets in the far reaches of exoplanetary systems like Fomalhaut & HR 8799! These are the realities!
So too the reality is that :
Pluto *is* a planet
… and the IAU and other Pluto-haters just need to get over themselves and accept it!
By that way, what is your proposed definition? What do you think would be better?
The original Pluto (& Eris & Ceres) inclduing definition that was proposed at that notorious Prague IAU meeting – without the Pluto-haters flawed and absurd “Orbital clearing” criteria which was undemocratically added in a last minute ambush without the best astronomers for the debate like Alan Stern being present simply for ideological reasons and anti-Pluto bias.
A planet is an object :
1. Orbiting its primary star (ie. not a moon.)
2. Not capable (ever) of shining through nuclear fusion as stars do
3. Massive enough to be round through its own gravity (hydrostatic equilibrium)
That’s basically it. If it circles its sun, isn’t itself a star & is kept round by its own gravity then its planet.
After which we can sub-divide planets into other classes :
Terrestrial like Earth
Gas giants like Jupiter
Ice giants like Neptune
Ice dwrafs like Pluto
Hot Jupiters like 51 Pegasi
Pulsar Planets like PSR 1257+12 b, c, d & e
Hot Ice planets like Gliese 436 b
SuperVenuses like Gliese 581 e
et cetera …
Doesn’t that sound more rational and reasonable than the current mess to y’all?
If not why not?
Why do “Black Cat” and others hate Pluto so much?
May 11th, 2009 at 1:05 am
… and why do Black cat and his fellow IAU followers hate Pluto so irrationally & in defiance of all logic too?
May 13th, 2009 at 1:16 am
My wife knew her at work [Epsom General Hospital] and Mrs Phair was also a patient on her ward at one point. Apparently she was a very pleasant woman who spent a lot of her time working with the ‘Friends of Epsom Hospital’. She never mentioned her role in the naming of the planet to my wife who was gobsmacked when it was in the papers in the UK a couple of years ago.