Fight for Pluto !, A Campaign to Reverse the Unjust Demotion Options

[mars loon]

Dear Friends,

Today I am extremely dissapointed that the Pluto Demoters have triumphed.

I respect their opinion, but disagree with it.

I strongly agree with Alan Stern's statement calling it "absurd" that only 424 astronomers were allowed to vote, out of some 10,000 professional astronomers around the globe.

This tiny group is clearly not at all representative by mathematics alone.

I believe we should formulate a plan to overturn this unjust decision and return Pluto to full planetary status, and as the first member of a third catagory of planets, Xena being number two. Thus a total of 10 Planets in our Solar System

Please respond if you agree that Pluto should be restored as a planet.

ken

Ken Kremer
Amateur Astronomers Association of Princeton
Program Chairman

[Jyril]

I have no problems with the "orbital dominance" (except for the horrible wording). Why? The IAU decided what is a planet, which is a primarily cultural term. It's more important for non-astronomers. They couldn't fathom the idea of dozens of planets. That's why the number of planets must be limited. Pluto posed a major problem, because it clearly was a member of population of many similar objects. There had to be a way to get it demoted.

Many of you actually think about non-satellite planetary mass objects, which is IMHO a completely different thing, actually. I think it would be wisest to limit the use of planet in non-scientific text and start to use the term "planemo" (or whatever) to refer any round object that does not fuse.

Phil Plait explains this much better:

Which brings me, finally, to my big point. This is all incredibly silly. We’re not arguing science here. We’re arguing semantics. For years people have tried to make a rigid definition of planet, but it simply won’t work. No matter what parameter you include in the list, I can come up with an example that screws the definition up. I’ve shown that already, and I’m just warming up.

The problem here is simple, really: we’re trying to wrap a scientific definition around a culturally-defined word that has no strict definition. Doing this will only lead to trouble. Why? For one thing, it’s divisive and silly. How does a definition help us at all? And how does it make things less confusing than they already are? Charon is a planet? It’s smaller than our own Moon!