Michael Kilderry wrote:Well it's all just arbitrary in the end, isn't it?
Not if you use statistical approaches on scattergrams of orbit elements and object masses... Do that, and it's clear Pluto is in a different population from terrestrial planets and giant planets...
Michael Kilderry wrote:I think favouring Pluto over Ceres is logical, at least for historical reasons. Pluto was known as a planet for a long time before all these TNO's stepped into our telescopes, Ceres on the other hand, has not been considered a planet for a very long time.
Er... think carefully about that history. Ceres was considered a planet for several years until three more asteroids were found orbiting between Mars and Jupiter like itself. Pluto is considered a planet because of the anticipation generated by Lowell's predicted planet. For decades, although Pluto was much dimmer than expected, it was argued it might still have a radius of up to 10,000km. Now that Pluto's been found too small to be Lowell's planet, and many comparable bodies have been found with similar orbits to Pluto, it seems only logical that Pluto follows the same fate as Ceres, and it's happening on a similar timescale too...
Michael Kilderry wrote:I think it's funny how it's got to the point where not only Pluto's planetary status is being debated, but so is Mercury's! Mars, you're next in line....
Charge up the Death Star, commander, I think it's about time we demonstrated to these rebel planetoids the full planet-determining capability of this battle station ...
Spiff.