Pluto Poll

[philmophlegm]

[Poll #2034217]

Comments

[ggreig]

Yes, but don't ask me to justify it - it's emotional and conservative rather than rational. If someone could explain to me convincingly enough why it's important to reclassify Pluto, I'd accept it. I understand the logic of it (or, more accurately, I did last time I saw it explained) but not why it matters.

[andrewducker]

"From 1992 onward, many bodies were discovered orbiting in the same area as Pluto, showing that Pluto is part of a population of objects called the Kuiper belt. This made its official status as a planet controversial, with many questioning whether Pluto should be considered together with or separately from its surrounding population.

As objects increasingly closer in size to Pluto were discovered in the region, it was argued that Pluto should be reclassified as one of the Kuiper belt objects, just as Ceres, Pallas, Juno and Vesta eventually lost their planet status after the discovery of many other asteroids."

And so they came up with a definition for planet. And Pluto didn't qualify.

[ggreig]

Makes perfect sense - logically. I'm usually all for the importance of meaningful definitions - I'm the guy in the development team who always wants to try to get exactly the right name for something. But for some reason, I'm just not feeling it when Pluto was accepted as a planet for 75 years, and the logical consistency argument isn't enough. I think perhaps it clashes with my sense of how history ought to work - if a definition has lasted a lifetime, you have to have a better reason to change it than tidiness.

[skordh.livejournal.com]

That's no planet...

[prester-scott.livejournal.com]

I do love how the news reports are saying there's "solid evidence" of a new planet out there. No, no there isn't. There's an astrophysical model and a prediction.