Pluto Demoted

[ffutures]

So... Pluto isn't considered a planet any more, and Ceres, Xena, etc. won't be added to the list of planets.

Seems a bit of a shame, and will probably be about as effective as renaming Brontosaurus as "Apatosaurus" was. It's going to be a LONG time before people stop using the old nomenclature in both cases.

Having said that, I can see the reasons why they've done it - I just wish that they'd left in a "grandfather clause" to keep Pluto as a planet, since it was so much a part of astronomical history.

Comments

I'd like to think ...

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

... that perhaps they wanted him to live his entire life being the last person to discover a planet and just waited until he died (happy) before saying "well, it's not *really* a planet, but, you know, he was such a lovely chap we didn't have the heart to tell him".

Re: I'd like to think ...

[chocolatescifi.livejournal.com]

From where I'm sitting, it still shows a lack of integrity, ethics, and honesty.

Really?

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

I don't see that at all.

If it isn't too much trouble I'd be interested to try to understand why you see it that way.

They could have grandfathered in Pluto, but would that have been scientific integrity, or just shameless pandering to popularism.

2003 UB313 was discovered (I'm guessing) in 2003, and Ceres has been around for ages and ages.

They had a meeting to decide what was a planet and what wasn't ... (e.g. why isn't our Moon a planet? It's big enough I think, it's probably got enough gravity to pull itself into a sphere ... but it isn't the dominant body in its orbit. After a lot of discussion (and this isn't the first time this has been up for discussion) they settled on a definition that leaves Pluto, Ceres *and* 2003 UB313 (and other Kuiper belt objects) out of "The Planets".

Personally it's as good a set of rules as saying "only those that Holst wrote music for" :-)

What do you find dishonest and what do you find unethical? It's a serious question, I'm really curious.

Re: Really?

[chocolatescifi.livejournal.com]

As I said before, it goes back to the fact that this didn't start until after Tombaugh's death. It's sooo much easier to start this campaign after his death than to have enough courage of one's convictions to say to Tombaugh, "No, you didn't discover a planet" while he was still alive.