Neither nine nor twelve
I am shocked and saddened this morning to report that our extended home, the solar system, has suffered a (nominal, theoretical) loss: Pluto is no longer a planet.
Pluto lost its status as a full planet yesterday when astronomers voted to reclassify it as a "dwarf planet", leaving eight "classical planets" in the Solar System. [...]
Delegates to the IAU's meeting in Prague drew a clear distinction between the eight classical planets, most of which were known since antiquity, and the much smaller Pluto, which was only discovered in 1930. From now on, the planets will be restricted to Mercury, Earth, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Venus, Mars and Uranus.
Amusingly enough, the conference had been called to debate increasing the number of planets to twelve.
Updated to say that Dale's comment has changed my opinion on this matter: My own geocentric, anthropocentric conviction is that a "planet" should be something that's visible to the naked eye. On examination this seems to me to be clearly correct: planetness is a social and cultural decision taken several thousand years ago. The reason we (Hom. Sap. but for that matter probably Hom. Neand. too) made the distinction between planets and stars is by observing their motion, and the reason non-astronomers care about the distinction is to be reminded to look for them in different places and at different times. A celestial object that cannot be seen under natural conditions should not be called a planet. QED.
By the way the list of the planets in the second paragraph disturbed me. It would never occur to me to list the planets - or anything else - other than in a meaningful sequence, e.g. by distance from the sun or in order of size. The randomness of that list, the sloppiness and essential "don't care"-ism that it reveals, makes me question the suitability of the authors for scientific journalism. But perhaps that's just me being an infuriating literalist again.
posted by Udge @ 10:48
4 Comments:
Funnily enough, when I read that list I had exactly the same thought as you about it. Then I read on down and found your remarks.
The Indepependent? Bah!
How very odd not to list them in sequence. You'd think it would be harder, not easier -- almost every other listing in the world would be in sequence from Mercury to Uranus; if you were cutting and pasting found text, that's what you'd find, surely. I wonder how it came about?
Anyway, though, I'm glad to be done with Pluto as a planet. My own geocentric, anthropocentric conviction is that a "planet" should be something that's visible to the naked eye. (I was very unhappy about adding Ceres, or especially that hunk of rock that doesn't even have a proper name, as a planet. Planets are a heritage of human culture, imbued with meaning and history. These other things are just lumps of matter that trained specialists find with instruments. Whether they're physically similar enough to qualify as planets is endlessly debatable. But the point, to me, is that they're not similar enough in human consciousness, which is what language exists to serve.
I always liked Pluto. I was saddened to hear the news too.
And the list of planets? Drove me crazy to not list them in terms of distance or size. They didn't even use alphabetical!
Okay, I'm sorry but that list was wrong. I have always remembered them in order of distance from the sun. How irritating. And I'm not even a logical person so I can just imagine how it is making you and Beth and everyone else in the world react.
And it is also irritating because Pluto is one of the planets that I can remember the order of. I get lost after Mars.
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