Posted by … Or Pluto is a Ball of Rock & Ice, not a Cartoon Dog
A few years ago, the International Astronomical Union standardized the definition of a planet and as such declassified Pluto. According to the IAU, the current official definition of a planet is a celestial body that
1. is in orbit around the Sun, 2. is round or nearly round, and 3. has “cleared the neighborhood” around its orbit
Pluto was declassified down to a dwarf-planet. The international outcry was enormous. And STUPID. Because this:
I would contend that the outcry about Pluto being declassified would have been severely muted if not for the fact that Walt Disney decided to name his iconic cartoon dog, Pluto, after the Greek God of the Dead and Ruler of the Underworld.
Recently, for some inexplicable reason, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics decided to tackle the issue of Pluto’s planet-ness again.
Gingerich argued that “a planet is a culturally defined word that changes over time,” and that Pluto is a planet. Williams defended the IAU definition, which declares that Pluto is not a planet. And Sasselov defined a planet as “the smallest spherical lump of matter that formed around stars or stellar remnants,” which means Pluto is a planet.
One can quibble with the scientific definition itself but Gingerich’s assertion of the importance of culture here is asinine. The mob doesn’t get to decide scientific classifications. Essentially their answer will be, “that’s how I learned it. I’m scared of change!” The public’s image of Pluto (the ‘planet’) is so inextricably linked to their image of Pluto the cartoon dog that to declassify the former is like a psychic slap of the latter. Why aren’t folks clamoring for Charon to be a planet? Or Ceres or Makemake?
There has to be an official designation that doesn’t depend upon cultural whimsy. Are fungi plants? No, but I’d be willing to bet that at some point in the past, most folks thought of mushrooms as weird plants. Similarly, the official definition says that Pluto isn’t a planet.
I don’t particularly care personally if Pluto is or isn’t a planet. If one were to jury-rig the definition of a planet to include Pluto based on a scientific reasons, so be it. But in all likelihood, Pluto & Charon would then become a double-planet system. Or more if Nix or Hydra were granted status. Plus Ceres, Eris, Makemake or any number of Kuiper-belt objects would also become planets. Either we have 8 planets or we have something like 15+ planets. Science, not culture.
