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Pluto is still a planet, just a dwarf one (thelemmy.club)
submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by to c/historymemes@piefed.social
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[–] 31 points 1 month ago (3 children)

I like to imagine the alternative world, where instead of deplanetizing Pluto, they planetized all the dwarf planets and planetoids in our system.

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  • [–] 15 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    The Earth's Moon is about 1.5 times bigger than Pluto.

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  • [–] 20 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    in Asimov's Foundation series, there is (was) a galaxy-spanning human civilization, but Earth was lost and mostly considered mythical. One of the arguments against it actually existing was the absurdity of such a double planet system existing. In the wider galaxy only giant planets had such large satellites.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    If that happened, then school children would no longer be required to learn the names of all of the planets. That's just a practical concern with adding another several dozen planets to the list.

    And I think it is worthwhile to make kids learn the names and some basic facts about the 8 planets we have.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Did you ever have to memorize the periodic table? This would be a walk in the park by comparison, at least using the current dwarf planet definition.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 child)

    It's a grade school vs high school thing though. Also only our AP chem class had to memorize the entire table. Knowing the first 20-40 was sufficient for everyone else.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (1 child)

    How many could there be?

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  • [–] 10 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Officially only 4 trans-Neptunian objects have been recognized as dwarf planets. But here's a paper that proposes another 36 known objects to be dwarf planets.

    That's about what the situation was in 2006 as well. A new technology was worked out to make it easier to find these, and once it did a bunch of discoveries came in really fast. The writing was definitely on the wall.

    If you include the entire Oort cloud, there could be billions of objects out there.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    I think that’s so cool!

    I wonder what they’re like (I’m sure the answer is cold and rocky, but still!)

    We need more deities!

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    I thought dwarf planets still had to be round, and they just lack the "cleared its orbit" requirement (e.g. Ceres in the asteroid belt). That would disqualify any Oort cloud objects except Pluto and Charon as far as I know.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    It's true. Dwarf planets do have to be round ("in hydrostatic equilibrium"). That requirement will definitely disqualify many of the hypothetical billions of Oort cloud objects.

    Ceres is an official dwarf planet, but I excluded it from my list because I was focusing on trans-Neptunians.

    A big reason why the IAU hasn't confirmed most of the 36 is because they want strong evidence of roundness, like a spacecraft flyby with direct imaging. Pluto and Eris are close enough that earth telescopes can just barely resolve some of their shapes.

    Finally, Pluto and Charon are too close to be considered in the Oort cloud. Sedna, whose discovery precipitated a lot of this crisis, has been nominated as the very first discovered object in the "inner Oort cloud." Sedna's perihelion is at 76 AU.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago*

    Oops, right -- Pluto and Charon are in the Kuiper Belt, not the Oort Cloud. I really shouldn't mix those up.

    I thought Haumea, Eris, and Makemake were solidly considered dwarf planets. But we don't have good images of those, do we?

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