Jupiter has a permanent cloud of asteroids that follow it and neptune crosses the orbit of pluto so neither of those have cleared their orbits so of course they made exceptions so that their contilrived definition fits.
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Zerush@lemmy.ml 2 days agoCorrect, it’s called planet when it orbits arround the Sun AND has cleaned it’s orbit from asteroids, not the case of Pluto, whose orbit is still full of other objects, some even bigger than Pluto itself.
If it orbits an Planet instead of the Sun, it’s a Moon, even if it is bigger than some other planets.
nexguy@lemmy.world 2 days ago
yetAnotherUser@discuss.tchncs.de 2 days ago
Do you mean the asteroids at the Lagrangian points? Every single planet has asteroids there because math/physics dictates those points to be stable. Jupiter has the most at its points because it’s the largest planet.
Same with Neptune cleaning its orbit: It has collided with every single thing in its orbit EXCEPT those that synced their orbits to Neptune. An object that is gravitationally dominated by a single planet should not be a planet under any definition.
Sources because I had to read into your claims and I’m no astrophysicist:
nexguy@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Yes, that’s the made up exception. And for neptune not clearing its orbit due to pluto crossing that orbit? Well we have to make an exception for that so…um…the resonance between neptune and pluto. Exception achieved!
The rules are so contrived that it would not make sense for almost any other system except exactly ours. Whatever it takes to keep Earth’s category of “planet” important… you know… for reasons.
Very unscientific but very human.
Live_your_lives@lemmy.world 2 days ago
What rules do you believe make for a definition that isn’t contrived? How do you exclude asteroids from your definition or reject other dwarf planets like Ceres without making up contrived exceptions of your own?
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
No.
Lets try a more simple metaphor.
One person is navigating through a crowd, occasionally bumping into other people, having to juke and dodge their way around.
Another person has an entourage or body guards to their front, and two gaggles of papparazzi following behind them, at each 45 degree angle to their rear, as they walk through an entire empty street 4 lane street, with some occsional people walking past the whole scene on the sidewalk.
Pluto and Charon are basically an awkward, clumsy couple trying to get through a densely packed mall or convention.
Neptune is Taylor Swift, as an entire parade float, just, herself, body guards, papparazzi. And I guess she also can have some literal ingroup orbiters who manage to stick around, their lives revolve around her the same way their walking patterns do.
And then maybe, by chance, that awkward couple leaves the convention, gets lost, walks the wrong way to a restaurant, and end up just directly crossing the street that Swift walked down, 6 hours ago.
There, is that a sufficiently relatable visual metaphor to illustrate the difference between the two situations?
mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
And for neptune not clearing its orbit due to pluto crossing that orbit?
Ah, yes. This is clearly justification for Pluto to become a planet! /s
Yondoza@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids sit at Lagrange points. Material found there is not counted in the ‘clearing the orbit’ calculations. They are in stable orbits caused by the mass of the planet in question, not in lieu of a massive enough body.
nexguy@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Well of course that was the exception they had to come up with for their contrived rule. The exception is: “whatever it takes to make pluto not a planet”. Since the vote was agenda fueled and not a scientific discussion.
Once something new is discovered and breaks the rules they will have to modify the contrived rule to keep pluto not a planet.
athatet@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
Hold on. What agenda wants Pluto to not be a planet?
piccolo@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
And what agenda is that? To mine the planet in secret so not to upset the environmentalists?
captainlezbian@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Yes, that’s how science goes. Simple explanations and definitions often fall apart upon further discovery and require caveats that sometimes even reinforce the intention.
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Pluto is a dwarf planet, which is still a planet.
Also, they absolutely should have just made an exception for Pluto so science teachers everywhere could have used that as a fun teaching point.
Small_Quasar@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Considering it’s in a double tidally locked orbit with its own moon Charon and the point that both rotate around is outside Pluto’s volume I would argue that the Pluto/Charon system is actually a dwarf-binary-planet.
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I’d okay with that. As long as it’s still technically a planet. (what? it’s my favorite!)
binarytobis@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Everyone loves an underdog
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
At that point the only really ‘planety’ thing about is is basically that it is spherical.
Its not primarily orbiting the sun, so much as it is the barycenter of itself and charon.
And there are moons that are bigger, and more spherical, and more massive than Pluto.
And while it does have the vaguely heart shaped terrain feature, Mars has a smiley face crater, Saturn has an eternal hexagon on its north and south poles, despite being a gas giant, Jupiter has the spot, Mimas kinda looks like the Death Star, etc.
GreatRam@lemmy.world 2 days ago
youtu.be/xgFKxFX3IwY I recommend watching this video
GraniteM@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Also they shouldn’t have called the category of “things that aren’t planets despite being in some ways planet-like” “dwarf planet,” they should have called them “planetoids.” Star Trek had been referring to small planet-like objects as planetoids for decades, so the work in the popular consciousness has already been done. Dwarf planet not being a planet makes it sound like they’re saying dwarf people don’t count as people, and I don’t care for that at all.
atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
nexguy@lemmy.world 2 days ago
You would think this is the case but they specifically decided through a vote that a dwarf planet is NOT a planet but a completely separate type of object. The whole vote was ridiculous and done at the very end of the conference so that only a fraction of the members were there to vote on pluto.
mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Then YOU come up with a definition of a planet that manages to include Pluto while simultaneously excluding Ceres, Eris, Cedna, Makemake, and 200+ other objects in the solar system large enough to be spherical, some of which are larger than Pluto
nexguy@lemmy.world 1 day ago
The definition of planet should be what it is, a traditional unscientific category based on history… like constellations. Calling Mercury a planet and Jupiter a planet as though they are similar in almost any way is silly scientifically.
Perhaps leave the traditional planets category alone and create new categories that could pertain to all systems not just ours. Maybe something like terrestrial planets, gas planets, dwarf planets… etc. Categories that won’t have to change any time a new discovery is made.
Rcklsabndn@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
The text book publishers are always looking for a reason to sell new editions.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 2 days ago
when it orbits arround the Sun AND has cleaned it’s orbit from asteroid
Jupiter, largest of all dwarf planets, shares its orbit with some i don’t know million asteroids.
ContriteErudite@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I’ve often thought that ‘clearing’ it’s orbit is misleading. I believe the definition ought to be changed to ‘controls’ or ‘governs’ its orbit. This allows for objects in stable L4/L5 locations without inviting the caveats that ‘clearing’ needs.
sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
Its because its a colloquial phrase that more or less the media picked up and ran with.
Actual astronomers and astrophysicists use math to describe what they’re talking about, math that you can find and learn fairly easily on wikipedia.
Lay people tend to just evaluate a phrase for its extremely literal meaning, not realizing that it is at best just pop science jargon, short hand to refer to a pretty well defined and precise concept, that is difficult to summarize without losing specificity.
There are many, many other examples of this kind of thing happening with other phrases or terms used to refer to complex concepts.
Honytawk@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
If those asteroids are on the L1-5 points, they do not count. Since they will stay at that orbit forever.
(pragmatically speaking)
NominatedNemesis@reddthat.com 1 day ago
But how do we define what orbits what? On the scale from the Sun to Earth, the Moon orbits the Sun, just a litle more wobbly than the Earth’s path, by litle I mean well below the error when we imagine the Erath’s path as an elipse.
We can try to define if something goes around as orbiting, but If I pick two planet from our solar system one will goes around of the other, thechnically orbiting it? We can try to restricting the distance… but that is a problem as well, even worst idea that “nothing” comes in between: multiple moons? What about the moons’ moons?
Ahhh, humans and their need to neatly categorize things…
Honytawk@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Just because 2 objects orbit around the same point doesn’t mean they orbit each other. Your entire argument is flawed.
We know what objects orbits each other because of the L4/L5 instability threshold.
ContriteErudite@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Help me understand the point you are trying to make. Are you trying to hand-waive categorization as superfluous to developing broader understanding?
Natural satellites fall within the primary body’s Hill sphere, where the gravity of the larger mass dominates. The Earth/Moon system co-orbits the sun. Saturn has two satellites that orbit each other, and that system co-orbits Saturn.
Zerush@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
The point is on which influence yhe orjecy orbits another one. It’s clear that the orbiy arround Earth of the Moon is influenced also by the Sun and in less way even by the other planets, but itt orbits the Earth and not these “influencers”. Thedifference of orbit and gravitanional deviations is pretty clear.
CatAssTrophy@safest.space 2 days ago
However, if a moon is sufficiently large compared to its planet, it also gets to be a planet and part of a binary planet system, not a moon.
mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Aka the Charon-Pluto binary dwarf planet system
Klear@quokk.au 2 days ago
“All right, Ganymede. You can be a planet, but firstvyou have to clean up your orbit. Start with Jupiter.”
Saapas@piefed.zip 16 hours ago
Villain origin story