Assuming that this story is true, because I haven’t gotten into the weeds yet on this one. But, hey, the headline’s too good to pass up. At issue is an asteroid (2016 H03), which apparently turns out to be a quasi-satellite of ours (too far out to be a satellite, too close to our own orbit to be ignored). Why does that matter? Well:
Asteroid 2016 H03 is proof that Earth has not cleared the neighborhood around its orbit. Therefore, under the definition of a planet vigorously defended by the IAU since the adoption of Resolution 5A on August 24, 2006, Earth is a ‘dwarf planet’ because it has not cleared its orbit, which is the only criteria of their definition that Pluto fails. (I think we’ll eventually discover that very few of the ‘planets’ have cleared their orbits).
If all of this sounds vaguely like trolling, I assure you: so was the original decision to make Pluto a ‘dwarf planet.’ The comments section to that Medium article is a particular hoot, not least because more than a few people over there don’t quite realize how, ah, ecclesiastical their objections sound. We do our children a disservice when we don’t teach them what a formal religious debate looks like. Not least because it keeps them from recognizing when they’ve stumbled into one.
Moe Lane
PS: I have no idea what my great-grandchildren are going to make of the entire Pluto thing, either. They’ll probably just think that it’s just more weird thing about their unenlightened ancestors.
Derp: IAU, not ICU.
D’Oh! Fixed, thanks. 🙂
*sigh* The Universe is as it ever was. It is these silly humans that insist on putting it into little boxes, and then putting it into different little boxes. Our great grandchildren will probably have moved on several generations of box-sets and, given the way things are developing, will probably have an IAU Special Editon Collectors’ Set.
That was hilarious. Props to the author.
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The comments were great. I enjoyed much laughter at the butthurt as appeals to authority were soundly mocked. (I especially appreciated the responce that by a given definition, Earth itself would cease to be a planet in a few million years. Following it up with an Aristotelian “A is A” argument for grace points. Beautiful.)
Since that seems to be putting more heat than light on the subject, I think that mostly reinforces the impression that Pluto’s demotion probably makes rather an emotional hash of the matter, mostly by way of being a proxy for a bunch of unrelated political shenanigans. That the definition may, also, be a factual hash is a rich, savory irony, but one I don’t think is fully supported by the author.
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I laughed pretty hard, though, taking no small amount of joy from the schadenfreude involved.