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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
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday April 03 2017, @09:45PM (2 children)
> Can't a planet be any cold body that has enough material (gravity) to form a round shape?
Agreed to KISS.
You only forgot the specification that it has to orbit the sun rather than something else (that makes it a moon, or for Pluto-Charon a dual-body system).
Why care if we have 8, 9 10, or 317 planets?
The scientists should want as many "planets" as possible, because it's easier to get grants for planet studies/exploration...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 04 2017, @04:47AM (1 child)
I don't think he "forgot"; why do you want to add complications?
The best argument for not caring about whether it has "cleared the neighborhood of its orbit" (or some more precisely defined measure of dynamical relevance) is to make the definition about intrinsic properties of the body in question, and if you follow that argument, well, you get some planets that are also satellites; you get some planets orbiting other stars than the sun; even some planets (hypothetical so far, but almost certain to exist) that are traveling through space alone, not orbiting any star. They're all planets.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday April 04 2017, @04:16PM
I'm pretty sure that the concept of "moon" doesn't need to somehow end up in the discussion, given that it's not polemic at all.
If your gravity-round thing orbits something that never underwent fusion, it's a moon. Otherwise, it's a planet.