Plutoids: a new class of objects beyond Neptune, Astronomy, politics or damage control Options

[Stu]

Therefore, the term 'planet', undoubtedly like most of our terminology for probably all nouns, is subjective. Fomenting long, bitter debates over what does and what does not "deserve" this term doesn't serve any practical purpose at all, and frankly might become a seriocomic, rather embarrassing spectacle in the eyes of the general public...who well might be wondering why all these PhDs making the mythical big bucks are wasting time on the issue.

All true, but I think it's unwise to just dismiss this issue as a squabble or an irrelevence. As I said at the time, although it did make sense scientifically - from a "terminology tidying up" point of view - the fundamental problem with this particular case was that it was a change of identity for an object that was lodged in the public's consciousness as firmly and securely as a mountaineering spike hammered into the side of El Capitan. I have had soooo many discussions with people about this, and the overwhelming majority were of the opinion that Pluto had been a planet for over 70 years, why did "you people" (i.e. me, i.e. astronomer types) just decide to change it? And in all honesty I can't defend the change, I just can't. Personally I think it would have been excusable and understandable to the IAU to throw its hands up and, for once, look up from its computer screens and fat books of tables and figures and definitions, acknowledge sentimentality and tradition and just crown Pluto as an "Honourary planet", but declare that That Was That, and from now on new rules would apply. The whole "dwarf planet" thing was simply embarrassing, a real fudge, and now this "plutoid" term is going to further cloud already muddy waters.

This isn't just my ranting opinion here, it's based on experience out there, in the real world, where the people I talk to in community centres, school halls, museums, libraries and the like during my Outreach talks are now genuinely confused by this. And trust me, many of them now believe that, well, if small groups of astronomers can go around changing things like this, then astronomy IS a stuffy old science after all, for wild-haired scientists with patches on their elbows, which, when science is already being challenged to tackle global warming, scientists are trying to push back the growling tsunami of "Intelligent Design" and Creationism, speak up for manned and unmanned space exploration and convince people that no, cave men and dinosaurs did not fight it out, is disastrous, IMO.

Then there's the problem in schools. Word hasn't filtered through the system into the classrooms yet, not here anyway, and when I had to tell a roomful of 8 and 9 year olds on Monday morning that Pluto - represented by a cute little brown-paper covered ball, hanging down from a piece of string that spanned their classroom - wasn't a planet after all, they were confused, disappointed and angry all at once. Boy, did it take some explaining that a tiny number of people, in a hall, had decided that Pluto wasn't a planet after all, maybe 15 mins eaten out of my hour-long talk. But as it's official now I towed the official party line and passed on the new knowledge as a good Outreacher is obliged to do, and now all those kids and their teacher know that Pluto isn't a planet but a "dwarf planet" - I am NOT going back to tell them it's a "plutoid" too! - so yaay me...

Change is necessary, essential, I'm not questioning that. And yes, with its weird orbit, small size and odd behaviour Pluto was, and still is, and I feel always will be, a big, ugly, fat black fly sitting smack in the middle of the pot of lovely white ointment that is the "official" view of our solar system, but seriously, what an absolute **** up this has all been.

[Stephen]

Oh, God....here we go again. ...time to get out the Advil.

What's an "Advil"? Perhaps you mean soapbox. :-)

Let me just restate what seems to me at least to be the correct perspective. Natural objects exist along a continuum. Conversely, people tend to categorize things, and get upset when a given object doesn't seem to fit neatly into one category or another.

If it's all these categories which are the problem, then allow me to solve the whole messy business with a simple, straightforward solution: let's bring back the continuum by abolishing ALL the categories, along with all those fiddly, controversial terms attached to them which seem to have set the boffins at one another's throats. :-)

No more "stars". No more "planets". No more "moons" or "galaxies" or "plutoids". Instead one universal category will apply equally to everything in the sky. Naturally, having a single universal category would mean only a single all-embracing term would be needed to apply to it. Having a single universal term that applied equally to everything in the sky, irrespective of size, origin, or surface colouration, would mean that the days of unhappiness and division, of quibbling and discrimination, of having the plutoid-lovers battling with the planet-lovers over whether some miserable speck that took a telescope to see was a planet, dwarf planet, or plutoid, would all be at a thing of the past. Instead peace, order, and universal harmony will reign forever more throughout the world of astronomical boffin-dom.

So what word should we use, do I hear you ask? What will be the wondrous universal term that will set everything to rights and solve all of the IAU's self-inflicted astronomical categorisation problems?

I propose the word "thingy". It's universally beloved, roles easily off the tongue, is simple to spell, and will end all that silly confusion about whether someone is talking about THE Moon or A moon. (Instead people will be able to talk about "the Moon" and "those little thingies that go round those bigger thingies", which will, of course, be ever so much less confusing.)

Think of it! In future you will able to talk about the thingy Pluto and the Sun thingy, astronauts will be able to study the thingy Earth, while if a boffin writes in some obscure journal about the "great whirly thingy in Andromeda" everyone will know at once he's not talking about Pluto.

And best of all it's extensible! If some day the particle physicists go for each others' throat because their union wants to limit the number of subatomic particles bearing that highly prestigious title of "hadron"--no problem! They can abolish all those confusing terms like quark, lepton, and the like and call them all "thingies" too.

Problem solved!

With all these many excellent points in favour, the IAU needs to set the ball rolling by adopting this wonderful idea at its earliest possible convenience.

======
Stephen

[Stu]

No "soapbox" Stephen, just concern, frustration and disappointment that supposedly "responsible" people have made an absolute sheep's bum out of an important issue just because they could. Trust me, if you had to stand in front of groups of people in a public lecture and explain what had happened, or try and explain to your book publisher why the artwork and captions on the book spreads you approved just a few days ago were suddenly out of date... again... you'd see this is quite important.

[dvandorn]

I don't know, Stu -- there was a delightful Python-esque quality to Stephen's logic. Or should I say, Bruce's logic?

You don't mind if I call you Bruce, do you, Bruce? Eliminates confusion, mate!

(That and referring the everything as "thingy" -- definitely a lurking Monty Python dementia being acted out, here... )

-the other Doug

[dvandorn]

Oh, and Advil is an American brand name for ibuprofen, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, aka an NSAID, aka an over-the-counter pain reliever.



-the other Doug

[Stu]

there was a delightful Python-esque quality to Stephen's logic.

Oh yeah, there was, it was a v funny post too Not debating that. It's just that the view of this argument is rather different from the 'frontline', you know? To most people here it's a curiosity, a talking point inbetween new images from probes. For me it's a bit more personal because it is something I know in advance will need explaining and justifying at some point in the evening every single time I fire up my laptop and projector to do a talk. And when you're faced with a roomful of people who are genuinely baffled by the decision, and who now think astronomers are all squabbling, loony scientists, like the the one in Back to The Future or Larson cartoons, well, you see it differently.

[Stephen]

To most people here it's a curiosity, a talking point inbetween new images from probes. For me it's a bit more personal because it is something I know in advance will need explaining and justifying at some point in the evening every single time I fire up my laptop and projector to do a talk. And when you're faced with a roomful of people who are genuinely baffled by the decision, and who now think astronomers are all squabbling, loony scientists, like the the one in Back to The Future or Larson cartoons, well, you see it differently.

For what my opinion is worth those out on the "frontline" would (for the present) do better to ignore the IAU's pronouncements on the planet/dwarf planet/plutoid matter until such time as there is a wider consensus on the issue.

That means--again just MHO--that the manuscripts you and others pen and the lectures you give--especially in the case of those of the popular science sort--should continue to label Pluto as a planet. If that entails applying the forbidden word to Eris et al as well, then so be it! Only when a wider consensus has emerged should you consider changing your terminology. Quite apart from other considerations, to do otherwise is to leave yourself open to the very problem you have highlighted: having to change your manuscripts and lectures with every change in the IAU wind.

If the IAU keeps feeling the heat that wind may change again at some point in the not-too-distant future; and maybe more than once. If you don't want to keep flop-flopping back and forth as well I suggest you stick with the labels everyone is familiar with and which nobody (outside the astronomical community) seems to have had any problem with.

Hopefully once a wider consensus does emerge the problem will go away, but I can't see that happening via small committees of the IAU. Such a consensus would more likely require a plenary session with several thousand members of the IAU in attendance and voting.

Even then, however, I would balk at the idea of any body, especially a self-selected one, and no matter how august, issuing announcements about the definitions of general (as opposed to specialist) English language words like "planet", "star", and "moon". Shades of the French Academy! Those words are not just used by small numbers of specialists in specialist journals but by hundreds of millions of more ordinary people every day--people who themselves had no say whatsoever in the IAU pronouncements.

(The IAU may well think its pronouncements are for specialists only, but that is not the way it is going to be viewed, let alone portrayed. It will be looked upon as an official announcement by a body presuming to claim a right to set an official definition. That is, one that will appear in dictionaries and other books, be taught to school children, and eventually become the new de facto day-to-day version for English-speakers in general.)

I note that the geographers and geologists have their own definition of "mountain" (which when I went to school was a peak over 3000 feet, although I notice that the film "The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain" lowered the bar to 1000 feet) but they generally keep that to themselves and don't seek to impose their definition on the wider population by making public announcements about it.

======
Stephen

[nprev]

Stu, I see your point. Did not mean to be dismissive; can certainly see how this remains a hot topic in the public's eye, and you're right on the front lines in your outreach efforts.

I don't know. Perhaps you could describe Pluto as the first known "platypus" of the Solar System. It ain't really this, it ain't really that, but it's got the characteristics of a couple of defined categories...and really, that just makes it scientifically much more interesting!

(Damn; forgot to participate in the "-oid" exchange. Is it too late to submit 'pain-in-the-asteroid' as the overarching category?)

[jamescanvin]

describe Pluto as the first known "platypus" of the Solar System...

...participate in the "-oid" exchange.

Platypoids? Brilliant. Forget the IAU, I've got my name for roughly-spherical-but-not-cleared-there-orbit-KBO's.

[tedstryk]

Would asteroids in the Hermian region (near the orbit of Mercury) be considered Hemorrhoids?

[TheChemist]

I don't know. Perhaps you could describe Pluto as the first known "platypus" of the Solar System. It ain't really this, it ain't really that, but it's got the characteristics of a couple of defined categories...and really, that just makes it scientifically much more interesting!

You realize of course that "platypus" originally means "flat-footed" in ancient greek

A compromise would be the best. Keep calling Pluto a planet (a honorary one, if you want), and name all the other thingies ( ) in the Kuiper belt plutoids.

[tasp]

Instead of "Plutoid", how about using the term "marklar" ??

[alan]

Forum Guidelines

1.9 Other banned subjects : Is Pluto a Planet? ...

Lets keep this discussion light,
the Pluto is a planet , is not a planet, debate has been done to death
if a serious debate of the subject reappears the thread will be deleted.

[centsworth_II]

...if a serious debate appears the topic will be deleted.

Is this a joke? Maybe this whole thread should be moved to "Chit Chat".

[hendric]

Stu,
Here's an idea on how to explain it. For many things there is progression, for example a tree. First it's a seed, then a sprout, then a sapling, and then a mature tree. These are nice, discrete words, but the world they are trying to describe is continuous. Is there a moment in time you can say that an oak has gone from a sapling to a mature tree? It's true of many things (I was going to use an example of miniskirts, but that might not fly for your audiences. ) that the names we give them represent a range that doesn't exist in reality. What astronomers essentially decided was that previously, we didn't know enough about planets to classify Pluto properly. Now that we do, they felt the need to move pluto over the line from "mature" to "sapling".

Honestly, the only real solution would be to use fuzzy logic. They have a couple of definitions, they need to just extrapolate them:

A planet must be self-gravitating such that it is spherical, with a range dependent on how circular it is
A planet must clear the area around it

So Pluto and Ceres would be about 50% planet, Vesta and 2003 EL61 about 30%, etc.

Additional criteria and their limits can also be easily added, such as diameter or mass. This way instead of a hard cut-off, there is a nice gradual tail, just like there should be.