• 🍉 DrRedOctopus 🐙🍉@lemmy.worldEnglish
    142·
    14 days ago

    kind of bullshit though.

    If pluto was a bit closer with a smaller orbit, it would have cleared it.

    Being a planet should be more about geology than where it is situated (we have even terms for planets with no orbits “rogue planet”).

    Having a “dwarf” qualifier would be fine, but it is a qualifier.

    And it was mostly done because we kept finding more planets and didn’t want to update the posters. That’s bs, imagine if when we began discovering new elements we made up some bullshit rules to keep the periodic table small?

    Heard some alternative definitions that are interesting, based on their geology. If it is just a pile of debris loosely attached then not a planet, big enough for geology to happen (new minerals formed by pressure and becomes round) planet. It makes moon a planet, unless you want to include parameters like “must orbit a star”. but that seems arbitrary.

    Let the moon be a planet AND a satellite of another planet.

    I want news whenever they discover a new planet, no one cares when they name a new dwarf planet.

    make solar system posters updetable like periodic tables.

    • bob_lemon@feddit.orgEnglish
      9·
      14 days ago

      It makes moon a planet, unless you want to include parameters like “must orbit a star”. but that seems arbitrary.

      I mean, that’s exactly the rule they added to prevent the moon from being a planet.

    • Tiresia@slrpnk.netEnglish
      3·
      13 days ago

      It makes moon a planet, unless you want to include parameters like “must orbit a star”. but that seems arbitrary.

      This is the core conceptual and historical distinction between a moon and a planet. If your definition of moon doesn’t include the moon, our moon, Luna, you’ve fucked up.

      The concept of a planet is about orbits. That’s what the word means; the wandering points of light in the night sky. Moons don’t wander separately from their planet. Dwarf planets aren’t points of light distinct from the rest of the asteroid belt they’re in.

      • Aniki@feddit.orgOPEnglish
        11·
        13 days ago

        oh i always guessed that “planet” comes from “plant”, i.e. something that is flat enough that you could do agriculture on it. i.e. hydrostatic equilibrium, etc.