Pluto is was and always will be a planet

Beelzebuddy said:
Either the solar system has eight planets, or a couple of dozenish. Eight is cleaner.
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And four is cleaner than eight, so why not say that only Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are true planets? There's a much cleaner dividing line between Neptune and Earth than there is between Mercury and Pluto.

Choosing your criteria just to reduce the number of planets is cowardly. Be brave. Choose a solar system with 20+ planets.
 
Trebuchet said:
Which isn't the case for the Pluto/Charon system, IIRC.
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It won't be the case with the earth forever either. The moon's orbital radius will eventually increase by roughly 40%, which should put the barycenter a bit outside the earth's surface. It would be strange for this gradual and smooth process to suddenly demote the earth from planet status.
 
abaddon said:
Pluto couldn't even kick the sand out of it's own orbit.
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Pluto has captured multiple moons, including one that's big enough for its gravity to form it into a spheroid. Obviously it's no Jupiter or even a Neptune, but then neither is Earth. Give it some credit here.
 
It's my theory that the Solar System has little planets on the inside, big ones in the middle, and little ones on the outside.

That is my theory, it is mine and belongs to me, and I own it and what it is, too.

Also, it looks like a Brontosaurus.
 
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It's quite obvious to me that a dwarf planet like Pluto is no more a real planet than a dwarf human is a real human. They just don't have proper legs to stand on.
 
I say we go back to seven planets: the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.
 
Ziggurat said:
And four is cleaner than eight, so why not say that only Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are true planets? There's a much cleaner dividing line between Neptune and Earth than there is between Mercury and Pluto.
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Did you read the next sentence? I'd be fine with further divisions. It would be a functionally more useful definition. Gas giants, planets (even if they're orbiting gas giants), rocky bodies. 0.1 kPa surface pressure is a good enough cutoff between the latter two. That would make Titan a planet, but not Mercury or Pluto.
 
Beelzebuddy said:
Did you read the next sentence? I'd be fine with further divisions.
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Sure, but that should be subdivisions within the category of planets. The word has a history, and the current definition should have some relationship to that history. Mars and Jupiter should both be planets, because they have both been planets since the word was first used by the Greeks to describe celestial bodies. So the question is how far past Mars and Jupiter should that definition extend.

Picking your answer on the basis of the number of planets you want there to be in the solar system seems like a poor method.
 
Ziggurat said:
Sure, but that should be subdivisions within the category of planets. The word has a history, and the current definition should have some relationship to that history.
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That's why Pluto's new category is "dwarf planet."
 
My definition of a planet: Earth.

The only other planets are whatever planetesque objects give earthlings pause, to contemplate the possibility that there are worlds beyond the their terrestrial horizon.
 
Oystein said:
Surely an object named after a minor Disney character cannot be taken serious with a claim to major planethood?!

(The should be an organization called "Panned Planethood", by the way :D)
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It also gave us "Plutonium" which we used to get to Pluto.



Coinkydink! I don't think so!

What are you hiding, Pluto?! Are you hollow like the Earth?!
 
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