Pluto Relegated, Solar System League Now Stands at Eight
Well, it looks like Pluto has been relegated to the “dwarf planet” league by the International Astronomical Union leaving the total number of planets at eight
Astronomers cited poor play in the second half and a lackluster final effort to remain in the Premiership, along with the fact that it’s position in the Solar System is largely decided by Neptune as important reasons for its demotion.
Pluto will join 2003 UB313 (known to its fans as “Xena”) in the newly-designated category where it is expected astronomers will add several more bodies. It is hoped that the quality of play will increase as more bodies are added. Planetary League experts expect that among those soon added will be former Asteroid League Champion Ceres and the body formerly known as Pluto’s moon, Charon.
UPDATE: Fight! Fight! FIGHT!
On Thursday, experts approved a definition of a planet that demoted Pluto to a lesser category of object.
But the lead scientist on Nasa’s robotic mission to Pluto has lambasted the ruling, calling it “embarrassing”.
And the chair of the committee set up to oversee agreement on a definition implied that the vote had effectively been “hijacked”.
Okay, so this is only interesting to something like four of us, but it’s fun When Scientists Attack.
Dr Alan Stern, who leads the US space agency’s New Horizons mission to Pluto and did not vote in Prague, told BBC News: “It’s an awful definition; it’s sloppy science and it would never pass peer review – for two reasons.
Firstly, it is impossible and contrived to put a dividing line between dwarf planets and planets. It’s as if we declared people not people for some arbitrary reason, like ‘they tend to live in groups’.
“Secondly, the actual definition is even worse, because it’s inconsistent.”
One of the three criteria for planethood states that a planet must have “cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit”. The largest objects in the Solar System will either aggregate material in their path or fling it out of the way with a gravitational swipe.
There are also some justified qualms with the rules by which members were allowed to vote.
Maybe this won’t be over. Until then, don’t whack yourself upside the head trying to forget that Pluto is a planet.
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Category: Hey, Mr. Science Guy!, Out in the Black
Pluto had a good run, quite a few years playing with the big boys. We should take a moment to note the real losers here–Ceres, which spent just a few weeks on the planetary waiting list, only to be kicked back down to the minors… and Charon, which looked like the Cinderella story, with every likelihood of vaulting all the way up to 'double planet' status. Now, struggling to hold on to fourth place in the Kuiper Belt League, against newcomer Quaoar, it looks like Charon's career has already peaked. The newly formed dwarf planet league may be the last, best hope for Charon and Pluto, but all the signs seem to indicate that competition could be fierce.
My dog, Devil Dog, would make short work of that puny Pluto just as he does all other spherical objects. Why he'd rip all the rough off it.