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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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[–] 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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