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posted by martyb on Monday April 03 2017, @06:54PM   Printer-friendly
from the we-need-cleanup-in-orbit-3 dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

It turns out that Earth is not a planet. Asteroid 2016 H03, first spotted on April 27, 2016, by the Pan-STARRS 1 asteroid survey telescope on Haleakala, Hawaii, is a companion of Earth, too distant to be considered a true satellite.

"Since 2016 HO3 loops around our planet, but never ventures very far away as we both go around the sun, we refer to it as a quasi-satellite of Earth," said Paul Chodas, manager of NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object (NEO) Studies at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Asteroid 2016 H03 is proof that Earth has not cleared the neighborhood around its orbit. Therefore, under the definition of a planet vigorously defended by the IAU [International Astronomical Union] since the adoption of Resolution 5A on August 24, 2006, Earth is a 'dwarf planet' because it has not cleared its orbit, which is the only criteria of their definition that Pluto fails. (I think we'll eventually discover that very few of the 'planets' have cleared their orbits).

Most of us who were baffled by the IAUs declaration and outraged at the obvious discrimination of Pluto knew there was something wrong, even if we couldn't put our finger on it — we just 'knew' Pluto was a planet, right?

[...] Here's what all of us non-scientists intuitively understood all along: "A planet is defined as an astronomical body that "has not undergone nuclear fusion, and having sufficient self-gravitation to assume a spheroidal shape" — in other words, it's round and not on fire.

How could the distinguished scientists be so wrong?

-- submitted from IRC


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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Justin Case on Monday April 03 2017, @07:46PM (1 child)

    by Justin Case (4239) on Monday April 03 2017, @07:46PM (#488327) Journal

    it's round and not on fire

    By that definition Earth's moon certainly qualifies as a planet, along with many other known moons.

    Perhaps it is time to rethink this:

    1. Stars primarily orbit the galactic center.

    2. Planets orbit stars.

    3. Moons orbit planets.

    Yeah, with this rule you get hundreds, probably thousands of planets orbiting Sol so that once again, Earth is not so damn special after all.

    Deal with it.

    And don't make schoolkids memorize the names of a thousand planets... or ten. What's the point? Teachers could just as easily say "Here are a few of the most interesting objects in space: Jupiter is a planet. Europa is a moon." They're both interesting, because of their size and composition, not because of their classification.

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  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 03 2017, @09:24PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 03 2017, @09:24PM (#488385)

    There's nothing wrong with something being a planet and a moon. It doesn't have to be conforming to your binary standard... shitlord.