Makemake Becomes the Newest Dwarf Planet 191
Kligat writes "The Kuiper belt object formerly known as (136472) 2005 FY9 has been rechristened Makemake and classified as a dwarf planet and plutoid by the International Astronomical Union, according to the United States Geological Survey. The reclassification occurs just a month after the latter category was created. The object was referred to by the team of discoverers by the codename Easterbunny, and the name Makemake comes from the creation deity of Easter Island, in accordance with IAU rules on naming Kuiper belt objects."
I miss... (Score:5, Funny)
Me too... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Me too... (Score:5, Funny)
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Goofy was a dog.
Pluto was a dog.
Goofy was Mickey's friend.
Pluto was Mickey's pet.
Does anyone else see anything unusual about that little triangle?
Re:Me too... (Score:4, Funny)
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The cartoon Arthur takes this concept to really disturbing levels.
I have come to believe that the characters in Arthur are actually meant to be humans and that their representation as various anthromorphic animals is just artistic. After all, unlike other childrens' shows with anthromorphic animals, Arthur never once makes refrence to the species of any of the characters. (except for pets and characters that are fictional in their world too - like Pal and Bionic Bunny)
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Nothing more unusual than a human keeping a chimpanzee as a pet.
Cartoon relationships become easier when you assume that bipedal, clothes-wearing, english-speaking characters are a different "species" than their feral cousins.
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Nothing more unusual than a human keeping a chimpanzee as a pet.
Michael is that you? How's Bubbles?
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No, me Tarzan, live in Jungle. Have Ape friend!
</brendanfraservoice>
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It's still there, it's just got less planety goodness.
Well... (Score:2)
Re:I miss... (Score:5, Funny)
I miss Pluto.
Don't worry, if you keep training, your aim will eventually improve.
Whatwhat? (Score:5, Funny)
$ make dwarf_planet
make: *** No rule to make target `dwarf_planet'. Stop.
Alright, well, that doesn't help at all. Maybe this [wikipedia.org]?
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Re:Whatwhat? (Score:5, Funny)
it failed, there for it was the one that comes with SUN.
Re:Whatwhat? (Score:5, Funny)
I don't know, it seems an eminently sensible way to name gods. We could have Killkill for the bringer of death, or Badbad for the source of evil, or Hichic for the god of wine... this has possibilities.
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I think it's pronounced "maki-maki".
About Venus... (Score:5, Funny)
So, are you suggesting that Venus, or Aphrodite, be renamed Fuckfuck?
Re:About Venus... (Score:4, Funny)
Funny, I thought it was pronounced Viagra.
So, if we rename Mars Warwar, and Women are from Venus and Men are from Mars, we could have some really interesting war stories.
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I say unify them both, as the male and female faces of the deity Bangbang.
(Not to be confused with the god of internal combustion...)
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More like Teasetease.
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Nudgenudge...
SaynomoreSaynomore...
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i wonder why they didn't call it make && make install.
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Now, to spoil the fun and permute through all "make foo, not bar" jokes containing makemake, I'm assuming the other targets are one of the following: all, install, clean, distclean, dist, world, war or love.
Make make, not all.
Make make, not install.
Make make, not clean.
Make make, not distclean.
Make make, not dist.
Make make, not world.
Make make, not war.
Make make, not love.
Make all, not make.
Make install, not make.
Make clean, not make.
Make distclean, not make.
Make dist, not make.
Make world, not make.
Make war
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How do you make make if to make make you need make?
Re:Whatwhat? (Score:5, Funny)
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Nobody said make couldn't exist before you make make.
You're very clever, young man, very clever, but it's turtles all the way down
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How do you make make if to make make you need make?
Most distro's simply come with a binary version of make , wich compiled somewhere else.
There's nothing wrong with that , except that you have a make that wouldn't be optimal for your system. By making make with the right flags , you create an optimal make.
plutoid... I like it (Score:5, Interesting)
Plus, plutoid has a good ring to it.
Re:plutoid... I like it (Score:5, Funny)
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Pluto does not have rings.
But he does have a green collar.
Re:plutoid... I like it (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree. Even if it was decided to keep Pluto as a 'planet', we would still have to come up with a new name for the eight large objects that orbit our Sun in a manner unlike anything else in the solar system (specifically, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune).
There is little room for sentiment in science. Things are what they are, and if it is discovered that something is being called something it shouldn't be, it has to be changed. Some people just don't get that.
The good news is that in this case, it isn't likely to happen again. Apart from the distinction between terrestrial and gaseous, the definition for planet seems pretty solid (I do expect the term 'exoplanet' to be absorbed into the definition of planet in the long term, though. Either that or we'll be extinct and it won't matter what anything is called anymore :-).
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I don't understand the need to sermonize what was a shabby decision here, both from a scientific and from a larger public policy point of view. Here [slashdot.org] is a fairly complete description of my complaint. I don't understand how someone can read that definition and think it is scientific despite the gaping holes both in its definition ("cleared a neighborhood" not specified) and scope (only applies to one star system out of tens of billions in the Milky Way alone). Let us recall that science textbooks are going to
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I've got to say, I think the compromise struck is a pretty good one. Pluto being a planet with similar objects not being a planet was not really scientific.
I don't really care whether there are 8 or 150 planets in the Solar System. The current compromise is not scientific. Here are the problems: a) the definition doesn't define a crucial term, b) it doesn't apply to other star systems, and c) any dynamics-based definition of planet cannot extend easily to other star systems (observation is difficult, systems can easily have different dynamics structure).
Re:plutoid... I like it (Score:4, Interesting)
The current definition of 'planet' is specifically restricted to describing objects within our solar system. Your latter two points are thus irrelevant and your first does not carry enough weight on it's own to be convincing. Hence your argument is refuted.
Once we have a better understanding of the dynamics of other star systems, we can think about a more inclusive definition. For now, we shouldn't worry about them because, as you said, observation is difficult and any conclusions we make now are subject to change.
In our own star system, the only system we can observe directly and thus the only system we can have any real knowledge of, Pluto is not, and never was, a planet. Get over it.
Re:plutoid... I like it (Score:4, Insightful)
Our observations of the Solar System and of the bodies orbiting other suns, if we are to be quite strict about it, would lead to the following three classes.
1: Stars
2: Gas Giants
3: Rubble
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Due to hubris and geocentrism, the sentient inhabitants of Sol system's largest rock consider rocks which dominate their orbital neighborhoods to be comparably important as gas giants. Unless a superior gas giant species disputes this claim, I think it's a good enough definition.
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The problem seems to be the distinction between Big Rubble like the Earth, Venus, and Mars, and Little Rubble, like the asteroids, Pluto, and other Kuiper Belt objects. The offical dividing line is still unclear.
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The problem seems to be the distinction between Big Rubble like the Earth, Venus, and Mars, and Little Rubble, like the asteroids, Pluto, and other Kuiper Belt objects. The offical dividing line is still unclear.
So, we call Earth, Venus, Mecury and Mars "Barneys" and Pluto and the other Kuiper Belt objects "Bam-Bams".
Re:plutoid... I like it (Score:5, Informative)
The current definition of 'planet' is specifically restricted to describing objects within our solar system. Your latter two points are thus irrelevant and your first does not carry enough weight on it's own to be convincing. Hence your argument is refuted.
I'm aware of the way they defined it. You apparently are not.
The IAU...resolves that planets and other bodies, except satellites, in our Solar System [my emphasis - khallow] be defined into three distinct categories in the following way:
This statement says nothing about planets about other star systems. In particular, it doesn't say that there can't be planets in other star systems. And note that the key distinction between "planet" and "dwarf planet" is an undefined characteristic, "cleared the neighborhoor around its orbit". So we have a definition that is ill-defined, works only for 1 star system out of tens of billions, and makes a distinction based on hard to observe dynamics that would only make sense for a portion of these star systems.
Pluto is not, and never was, a planet. Get over it.
I see we're revising history now. Pluto was indeed a planet from roughly the time of its discover until it was reclassified in 2006.
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So we have a definition that is ill-defined, works only for 1 star system out of tens of billions, and makes a distinction based on hard to observe dynamics that would only make sense for a portion of these star systems.
Gosh, we'd better abandon Linnean classification in biology then, because of problems with the definition of species boundaries, because it doesn't specify where extraterrestial species would fit in, and it depends on features of species that would be hard to observe in the case of extraterrestial species.
Well, either that or you're special pleading, and making demands of planetary classification that the scientific community would not normally make of a classification system.
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I don't really have a horse in this race, but you might like to know that Linnaean classification isn't a good example for your argument. It's been heavily modified since Linnaeus, and parts of it have in fact been abandoned for some applications, like the angiosperms (APG II is a lot more useful, generally).
But the current, adapted form is still called Linnean classification, isn't it? It's the modern form I was referring to, I knew it had evolved since Linneus.
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This statement says nothing about planets about other star systems. In particular, it doesn't say that there can't be planets in other star systems. And note that the key distinction between "planet" and "dwarf planet" is an undefined characteristic, "cleared the neighborhoor around its orbit". So we have a definition that is ill-defined, works only for 1 star system out of tens of billions, and makes a distinction based on hard to observe dynamics that would only make sense for a portion of these star systems.
Not "for a portion of these star systems", but only for ours. Our technology is not far enough advanced to detect small planets and dwarf planets in other solar systems, or to determine whether they cleared their orbits. We know extremely little at all about planetary systems outside our solar system, and for that reason it's silly and meaningless to classify exoplanets according to the same system we use for our solar system. Once we can observe other systems in more detail, that will undoubtedly change, b
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Not "for a portion of these star systems", but only for ours. Our technology is not far enough advanced to detect small planets and dwarf planets in other solar systems, or to determine whether they cleared their orbits. We know extremely little at all about planetary systems outside our solar system, and for that reason it's silly and meaningless to classify exoplanets according to the same system we use for our solar system. Once we can observe other systems in more detail, that will undoubtedly change, but for now, I'm afraid you'll have to be patient.
No, this isn't about patience. This is about making an elaborate definition that only applies to one star system. The International Astronomical Union could have just as well said "The eight planets are: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune." And you know what, they actually did, in a footnote.
To continue, I see no reason we can't have used computer models of planetary system formation to construct prototype classifications for bodies in other star systems. Even regular observat
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No, this isn't about patience. This is about making an elaborate definition that only applies to one star system.
But for the time being, that's all we have: one star system.
The International Astronomical Union could have just as well said "The eight planets are: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune." And you know what, they actually did, in a footnote.
And they even provided a rationale for why this is the case. So what's the problem?
To continue, I see no reason we can't have used computer models of planetary system formation to construct prototype classifications for bodies in other star systems. Even regular observation won't be enough to catch all the possible degenerations that can occur.
But neither are computer models. Our computer models aren't good enough, because we have only a single example that's sufficiently detailed. A model of how our solar system formed may not apply to all other systems. That's why this definition can only be about our solar system.
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But for the time being, that's all we have: one star system.
I find it ironic that you councel patience yet we must have a definiton of "planet" right now.
And they even provided a rationale for why this is the case. So what's the problem?
I already explained this in my original post. The rational is incomplete and only applies to one particular star system.
But neither are computer models. Our computer models aren't good enough, because we have only a single example that's sufficiently detailed. A model of how our solar system formed may not apply to all other systems. That's why this definition can only be about our solar system
I disagree. We know the basic laws of physics. A computer model doesn't have to be all that good in order to come up with relevant classification criteria.
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Ok. You are correct that Pluto was indeed a planet from the time of it's discovery, until reclassification in 2006. How long is that, roughly? About 76 years. Yes, we discovered Pluto about 78 years ago.
Now... how long did mankind believe that the Sun revolved around the Earth? I dunno exactly. However, I guarantee it was FAR longer than 78 years.
Why aren't you complaining about how THAT definition got revised? Why aren't you complaining that we don't believe that the Sun is a flaming chariot being dr
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I didn't say what you are claiming I said. Remember when we speak of the meaning of "planets" we speak of definitions not facts. Nothing has changed because we decide now that Pluto is not a planet. It is reasonable to dislike the consequences of what we decide what "planet" means. But to claim (in view of what we know) that the world is flat or the Sun revolves around the Earth is simply in error, because now we're claiming things that aren't supported by facts. We've gone well past definitions to making f
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I think it's stupid. (Score:4, Interesting)
The definition has no scientific usefullness. I have no problem with creating taxonomies purely for local use, but they should at least tell you something about the objects you are classifying. Plutinos, cubiwanos, twotinos, are all usefull categorizations of objects by their orbits in the Kuiper belt, which is likely correlated to their orgins. Dwarf planet is a usefull categorization of things bigger than an asteroid, but smaller than a planet.
Plutinoid is just stupid - all the dwarf planets except Ceres. Yes, I know that Ceres has different orgins and makeup than the large KBOs, but there is an awful lot of variation between those as well. If we wanted a more specific definition than dwarf planet then we should have waited until we knew more about them so we could make one that has some meaning.
Depends. (Score:5, Interesting)
Why does it matter? Well, think back a few days to the recent news on the DNA analysis of birds. Turns out, the definition based on appearances is completely wrong. What was it, kestrels are genetically closer to hummingbirds than any other bird of prey? And the DNA variation between any two lineages within a species has next to zero correspondence to morphology. In other words, looking at something from the outside tells you bugger all. So, naturally, looking at the outside of an object orbiting the sun is the perfect way to tell what it is. It's only a method every other discipline has now ruled to be faulty, after all.
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Slighly OT, but here's a link to an google engEDU talk [google.com] on the subject of taxonomies, by the author of "Everything is Miscellaneous". True believers in "tags" (metadata) may be familiar with some of the ideas. Early (first couple of minutes) on he makes some amusing observations of the Pluto controversy. I didn't completely agree with his view, but his argument is illuminating.
I can't remember if the video touches on this specifically, but the discussion reminds me of the ascendancy of cladistics [wikipedia.org] in biology
Except these have no DNA (Score:4, Interesting)
Except:
1. Even for birds, there are classifications which are useful even if they don't reflect the DNA. E.g., a "bird of prey" or "flightless bird" are still useful categories, no matter to whom the individual species are related.
Basically a category is just a way to say "all these have property X", no matter what X is or in what other categories they also belong. Grouping them by DNA is just _one_ of the many possible groupings. It's useful, no doubt, but it's not the only useful one. It doesn't make all others faulty. No, even the ones based on looking from the outside. Sorry.
I fail to see why the same can't apply to planets. We already have such categories as being in the right band to have liquid water too, for example. It tells you bugger all about its interior, but it does tell you that the exterior _could_ support Earth-like life. It's a useful category. Even if it's based on where it happens to be.
2. These have no DNA so to speak. They're chunks of rock and ice.
And a lot of other stuff is pretty much based on how big they are and where they are. E.g., whether it has one core or no core or multiple cores, is pretty much just an issue of how big it is. If gravity was high enough, it pulled the heavy stuff towards the centre. If not, not.
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Pluto being a planet with similar objects not being a planet was not really scientific.
And a dwarf planet not being a planet is scientific?
Or the fact that the use of the 'The Sun' in the definition means extra solar planets don't count if the definition is taken literally.
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Bumper Sticker: If you're not a plutoid, get off my arse.
Nah, doesn't have the same flair.
But... (Score:4, Funny)
Shouldn't it be named Module::Build?
Leader of the discovery team wrote a blog entry (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Leader of the discovery team wrote a blog entry (Score:5, Informative)
It's supposed to be pronounced "maki-maki," Hawaiian-style as he calls it.
That is definitely not Hawaiian style. (This rant is directed at him, not you.)
In Hawaiian, and many other languages in the Polynesian family, vowels have one main pronunciation. Es are pronounced with an "ay" sound, so the correct "Hawaiian-style" pronunciation would be closer to maKAY-maKAY. In fact, vowels are generally pronounced longer than English, so an even better transcription might be muhKEH-muhKEH.
Also, Hawaiian and Rapanui have common roots, but like all languages, they evolved. "Make" means death or defeat in Hawaiian; "makemake" can mean defeat or desire or wish.
Re:Leader of the discovery team wrote a blog entry (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Leader of the discovery team wrote a blog entry (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe you're frustrated because of Mars rover operators naming minor landforms around their landing probes things like "lollipop," but these are just placeholder names until they think up better ones.
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Jack Skellington?
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Great, a flake is in charge of naming, just as I suspected. "Makemake"? Come on...what a dumb name. Oh, but you're supposed to pronounce it differently than "make" twice. Yeah right, like anyone is going to do that.
I really wish that scientists would be professional. "Easterbunny"? Let me guess, his kid loves the Easter bunny. This is the equivalent of making your own magazine so that you can be the cover model every month.
You are aware of where the names for the rest of the planets and satellites come from, right?
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> P.S. he didn't "find" the planets, they were already there
wtf? And nobody else had picked them out of the night sky yet, so yes, he found them.
Learn what words mean.
mkay (Score:2)
greatgreat
Correct pronunciation (Score:2, Informative)
Rupert (Score:3, Funny)
We need one of these objects to be named 'Rupert' in honour of the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
You insenitive clods! (Score:4, Funny)
Don't call them "Dwarf planets" They prefer the term "Gravitationally Challenged"!!!!
I can see it now... (Score:3, Funny)
The International Asteroid Registry
"Forget stars... name a cold, hard rock after your ex."
2 syllables or 4? (Score:2)
Since the term is polynesian rather than anglo, I'm guessing it pronounced maki-maki instead of mayk-mayk. But I'm not sure.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makemake_(dwarf_planet) [wikipedia.org]
Makemake,[5] pronounced /maËkimaËki/,[6] formally designated 136472 Makemake, is a very large Kuiper belt object, and one of the two largest among the population in the classical KBO orbits. Initially known as (136472) 2005 FY9, it was discovered on March 31, 2005 by the team led by Michael Brown. Makemake is now officially classified as a dwarf planet and plutoid.[5][7][8]
Prior to making it public, the discovery team referred to it by the codena
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Easter Island creation deity. [wikipedia.org]
Nice coincidence... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Well ... I don't know about you, but I'm waiting for "Waka Waka"
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Sounds like the opposite of rice wine which is written sake but pronounced by Japanese as "Sa-Keh" and not "Sa-kee".
Geez... (Score:3, Informative)
That "makemake" is from Japanese or some other language... and that the guy who named it wasn't really just a complete loser.
Do we need to start telling people to RTFS (Read the Fucking Summary) as well as the usual RTFA now?
C/P directly from the Summary:
"The object was referred to by the team of discoverers by the codename Easterbunny, and the name Makemake comes from the creation deity of Easter Island, in accordance with IAU rules on naming Kuiper belt objects."
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Alright. I'm duly shamed.
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- Object "juiper_belt_object" not found! [damn it!]
root@Universe# sudo make Kuiper_Belt_Object_136472_2005_FY9
**Output omitted**
**FATAL ERROR! Universe OS GCC cannot make executables! [Double damn it!]
root@Universe#_
Shit! In the interest of time, I would just reload the whole universe from scratch rather than hunt down that demon!
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Re:Why can't they just leave shit alone? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why can't they just leave shit alone? (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no particular scientific benefit in calling something either a planetoid or a dwarf planet. It's all a matter of opinion it seems to me. So I understand the annoyance.
Re:Why can't they just leave shit alone? (Score:5, Informative)
I agree with the principle of dogma vs. science, but I don't think this is the best example. It doesn't do well for credibility if you keep changing your mind based on unstable definitions and pretend it to be news each time you've tweaked one of them.
It's not "changing your mind", it's discovering new information. The discovery of Pluto was an accident (due to an error in calculation, a much bigger planet was predicted in that location, but it wasn't there), and because Kuiper Belt Objects were unknown at that time, Pluto got planetary status, although it was immediately obvious that it was a very abnormal planet.
Eventually it became clear that Pluto had to be a Kuiper Belt Object. As long as it was the only big one, that wasn't much of a problem, but eventually, astronomers discovered KBOs that were as big as or even bigger than Pluto, and a choice had to be made. Leaving Pluto a planet while denying that status to other large KBOs would be silly and unscientific, so either all large KBOs would become planets, resulting in dozens or hundreds of extra planets in our solar system, most of which would share similar irregular orbits, or accept that KBOs are different from regular planets, and give them their own class. That's what happened. Maybe they should have demoted Pluto earlier, but it was unavoidable, and by the time it happened, it was long overdue.
Not that this wasn't the first time planets had been demoted. In the 19th century, Ceres and a couple of other asteroids were also considered planets, but eventually astronomers decided that since they shared a similar orbit with lots of smaller asteroids, they had to be a different class of objects from the regular planets. Ceres and the others didn't have planetary status for as long as Pluto did, but that was due to Pluto accidentally being discovered way before we technically should be able to do so.
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However the argument you were responding to did not appear to make any complaint about having more planets or less planets just the idea of changing the definition being dogmatic.
So accepting the idea that having a consistent definition of planet is a "good thing" scientifically speaking. You have neither justified the necessity of changing the definition nor addressed to the posters argument.
I think I've justified changing the definition by explaining how our knowledge and understanding of the objects we're trying to classify has changed. Just like definitions and classifications in biology change as our understanding of the relations between species grows, our increased understanding of the various objects that make up our solar system also leads to new ways to classify them.
Science instead of dogma, huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no "mistake" to be made in choosing between two essentially arbitrary definitions which have no basis in external reality. Nothing has changed about Pluto. Nothing of substance has changed of our understanding of Pluto. (It is not like our understanding of biology, where new DNA evidence comes to light and two organisms we had previously assumed to be related becaused they looked similar turn out to have no recent common ancestry.)
The only thing which has changed is our arbitrary definitions.
There is a great hue and cry that one way to arbitrarily define things is not merely customary but that it is Correct and that all other forms are Unscientific. That, my friend, is dogma in its purest form.
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If astronomers couldn't change the number of planets as new information became available, then astronomy would be dogma instead of a science.
This isn't dogma vs science.
To me the pluto demotion has been a great illustration of science at work. Educators should be using it as an example of the difference between science and dogma. Mistake made, mistake corrected.
What mistake? The IAU had a vague traditional definition of planet that really didn't set any hard boundaries, except that they be 'special' (vis a
All a planet is... is a rock (Score:2)
The number of rocks in the solar system doesn't change, no matter what the scientists call them. (Well, I suppose some little rocks are flying in an out on a frequent basis, and sometimes they congeal into bigger rocks or fall into the sun, but those are mostly rocks we don't care about. As opposed to, well, rocks that we care about because they're traditionally the rocks we have cared about.)
Personally, I don't much care what they call them. At least when they're debating about what to call them they ca
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Except when certain rocks [slashdot.org] thought to be dry aren't [slashdot.org].
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Two years ago, I knew how many "planets" our solar system contained. Then a change was made... then changed again... now another. I do not even know the total any more.
No "change was made", new objects were discovered that should be counted as planet according to the old definition, and we'd eventually end up with hundreds or thousands of planets in our solar system, all but 8 of which would be Kuiper Belt objects.
So in order to keep the number of planets stable and knowable, the definition was changed and KBOs (including Pluto) were demoted to "dwarf planets". So from now on, the number of "true" planets in our solar system is 8 and will never change (barring some immens
It's 12, but don't expect it to stop anytime soon. (Score:2)
There are eight planets and four dwarf planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, (Ceres), Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, (Pluto), (Eris), (Makemake). (Dwarf planets in quotes.) Ceres used to be called an asteroid because it's in the asteroid belt, but it's really too big for that. The others have been there all along, but they're way out there, so it takes a while to figure out if they qualify as a planet. If you're really trying to keep up, you might want to make
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Life is change. You should probably try to get used to that idea if you have any hopes for happiness.
Happiness makes me unhappy!
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Good thing, too. Otherwise it could've started a recursion that would've filled the universe with dwarf planets and they would've come crashing down on us.
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That's Goofy.
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You forget the Makefile.
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