- BREAKING NEWS: Pluto Demoted, No Longer a Planet

- Pluto loses status as a planet

Quick! Is there still time to redirect New Horizons to say... Uranus or Neptune?

Sorry, I couldn't resist...

What's Alan's email address?

Why would this affect NH in any way, shape or form.

Pluto is still Pluto. Still fascinating, still unexplored, still part of a collection of bodies that we need to learn about.

The silly thing about this entire episode is that it's making the news......but no one has learnt anything, no one has discovered anything, nothing has changed.


Doug

Oh I don't know about that. As the saying goes “There’s no such thing as bad press”

The public has learnt that that the Solar-system is a much more varied and interesting place than that taught to them in school (25 years ago in may case ) and highlighted the problematic discoveries of large bodies that don’t conform to the old rules.

I think it's fascinating, and I think the correct decision has been made.

I am also glad that NH is on it’s way (Phew!)

Nick

I am quite happy of the decision because
1) the definition of planet that was approved is exactely the same I have been promoting for some time
2) New Horizons is already launched. I wonder how more difficult it would have been to "sell" the mission had Pluto already been demoted

...Which makes it perfectly suited for making the news.

And yes, we *are* lucky that New Horizons is already launched. It's hard to see how Pluto's demotion from planetary status could have failed to affect the mission, had this happened a few years ago.

It shouldn't. I was joking -- hence the smiley.
Although I am one of those "demote Pluto" guys, I still think Pluto is a worthy target to explore. I'm eagerly awaiting July 2015 as much as the next guy. Just as I'm looking forward to Dawn visiting Ceres and Vesta. To me it makes very little difference what the object's classified. As long as it's interesting, I wanna see it explored.
That's why this whole thing is silly and absurd as you say; I was just trying to lighten things up a bit

Just wait until Senator Curmudgeon (C-New Dorkshire) stands up in Congress and demands that New Horizons be "recalled" because "the people of this great nation don't want to see their tax dollars wasted sending machines to 'dwarf planets'!"

We discussed this earlier, and this triggered a conversation with one friend with a nice astronomical interest some time later (He's not a full fledged space buff, but well infomed).
And his view was already then that Pluto should be demoted for the simple reason that Pluto cross the orbit of Neptune.
As for me I kept the view that Pluto should remain a planet for 'historical reasons' even though my hesitation had grown somewhat. I think I had a problem of demoting a planet since I have grown up with the idea that Pluto are one planet.

Now the verdict are in, I live with it. Pluto are still there, whatever it is called. Yet like some already have hinted, it might have been hard to get a mission underway if Pluto was not seen as part of the planetary family. So its the best of both worlds..... Pluto and Charon thats it!

I disagree. It was a long, slow fight to get a Pluto mission, and I don't think anyone involved would want to have any extra ammunition whatsoever in the hands of the political opponents of it.

I could see someone in a House committee saying, "The damn thing's not even a planet any more," getting a round of laughs, and a representative or two thinking that the same line would seem persuasive to a few voters or fundraisers, etc. Or Goldin pushing the same line. I don't see the impetus towards the mission having been so solid that it might not have been derailed by an additional flyspeck of resistance.

NH has 9 years to go. I would be very surprised if this issue remains settled. Anticipation of NH's arrival itself might spur reconsideration of the issue. It's credible that NH's observations might rekindle the issue if Pluto is found to be particularly lively.

If the scads of rival definitions has made anything clear, it's that "planet" is a category with many properties that one person or another finds to be relevant in its conceptualization. Most of the reasoning that has gone into the debate has involved appeals to intuitions: Gut-level reactions to hypothetical cases have been used repeatedly as the test of a definition. If this tells us anything, it should be that the gut-level reaction is the real definition of "planet", and we're just trying to reverse-engineer it into a codification. We all know that Saturn and Mars are planets, and we pretty much all "know" that Charon isn't. When we get a definition that counters what we "know", we reject it. Again, what we already "know" *is* the definition of planet, and there's no guarantee that it codifies elegantly. As the Supreme Court justice said of pornography vs. art, you know it when you see it. Of course, different people have different opinions. That, to me, is the end of the line. The embarrassment and the indecision shows that it was a damaging exercise that missed an opportunity to do the right thing and NOT define the undefinable. And this issue is not settled, I promise.

Discovery also includes better understanding what you already "know". This discussion could be a good way of letting the general public see some of the behind the scenes workings of science. Like a tour through a slaughterhouse to show the messy reality behind the neatly wrapped meats in the grocery store, this shows the messy reality behind the neatly wrapped scientific "facts" in school books.

And now what astro category belong to Pluton? Icy Asteroid?

P.D.
Never mind. I have already read others pages: --> Dwarf planet. It does not sound me good! because its nomination is the same: Planet.

Rodolfo

This isn't science though. We have not measured the composition of anything, nor have we found something new. We've not measured an albedo, taken a spectra, imaged an occultation......it's just administration.

And to be honest, given that 2 weeks ago we had 9 planets, 1 week ago we had 12 or more, and now we have only 8.....it's made the scientists involved looked more than a little silly.

Doug

Look on the bright side, with only 8 planets now... Our exploration of the solar system is officially complete! USA! USA! USA! Just kidding.

No, no, it's not complete until all the planets have had orbiters!

grrr.... needless to say I am very unhappy right now. I'll live, but still

I'll see if www.demoteearth.com is still available.

I completely agree.

Several years ago, I stated the opinion that it is a mistake to think that doing science is hard but naming things and defining categories is easy. In this case, none of the "science" is particularly sophisticated: You could teach an intelligent person with no science background all of the relevant science in at most a few hours. This is very different from the debates around biological taxonomy, which pertain to encyclopedic arcana.

I would have put this issue to professional categorists, cognitive scientists to wit, instead of professional astronomers.

In a business, you learn that professionals in area X really are better at it than smart people who are dabbling in area X. A smart engineer should not take over a sales job. A smart marketer should not install computer hardware. I think what we've seen here is that being smart at astronomy doesn't make someone a good categorist. I think if the "facts" and position-papers supporting three to ten rival definitions had been handed to people who study categorization, they could have rendered an elegant embarassment-free definition that the scientists themselves could not. They were basically operating in an area outside their expertise: Astronomy has had an easy time of it, distinguishing between white dwarfs and neutron stars, neutron stars and black holes: distinctions that are sharp and clear. The first outing in a really tough categorization task has shown the lack of experience.

I read that Pluto was the only planet discovered by an American.

This whole discussion has opened up precisely because of how many new things have been discovered about the solar system. Science is not just the collecting of data, it is also putting the data in context with what is already known.

Like the classification system of living things has changed with new genetic studies, the classification of solar system objects must change with new discoveries. In neither case will the changes be quick, easy, static or uncontroversial. But in both cases, the classification discussions are very much part of the science.

Well, I'm personaly not very happy about losing Pluto as planet but at least I can say that I have saw all 8 planets with my 4,5" telescope...
I'm just guesing what size asteroid (or whatever) has to be to be planet...because when Pluto was discovered it was thought it is 6000 km in diameter, and that would be a planet!

And now I have to update my rhyme:

As for Pluto, Sir or Madam,
Fame and glory, it has had 'em
But it's gone the way of Adam --
Wasn't good enough for me!

Gimme that Old Time Solar System
Gimme that Old Time Solar System
Ceres, Pluto -- never missed 'em
They're not good enough for me!

B)-->