this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2024
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Science Memes

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[–] [email protected] 89 points 1 year ago (9 children)

Pluto will always be a planet to me, and you'll pry that definition from my cold, dead hands!

[–] [email protected] 49 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Stay strong. A dwarf planet is a perfectly valid kind of planet, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's not the size that counts but the ability to clear your orbit. ;)

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

this condition makes "planetness" into a local condition. so theoretically, we can throw enough junk into space and stop anything we want from being a planet.

pluto just got unlucky in terms of the amount of trash it has in its way. its not fair :(

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No, because if it's a proper planet it will clear its orbit.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Good question! I had forgotten about Jupiter's Trojans and Greek asteroids!

I went and checked the definiton of Clearing the Neighborhood by IAU, emphasis mine:

The phrase refers to an orbiting body (a planet or protoplanet) "sweeping out" its orbital region over time, by gravitationally interacting with smaller bodies nearby. Over many orbital cycles, a large body will tend to cause small bodies either to accrete with it, or to be disturbed to another orbit, or to be captured either as a satellite or into a resonant orbit. As a consequence it does not then share its orbital region with other bodies of significant size, except for its own satellites, or other bodies governed by its own gravitational influence. This latter restriction excludes objects whose orbits may cross but that will never collide with each other due to orbital resonance, such as Jupiter and its trojans, Earth and 3753 Cruithne, or Neptune and the plutinos.[3] As to the extent of orbit clearing required, Jean-Luc Margot emphasises "a planet can never completely clear its orbital zone, because gravitational and radiative forces continually perturb the orbits of asteroids and comets into planet-crossing orbits" and states that the IAU did not intend the impossible standard of impeccable orbit clearing.[2]

Trojans and Greeks orbit Jupiter's LaGrange points in a stable orbit and so they are governed by Jupiter's gravity. You could say they're really weird moons orbiting semi-stable points Jupiter creates.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Does it dig mines and sing upbeat work songs?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

ROCK AND STONE…….. and orbits

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Whatever, Pluto is a dwarf planet like every other dwarf planet too.

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 year ago

Damnit who let Elon name that planet?

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The planet formerly known as twitter.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (2 children)

aint no planet x coming cause aint no space cuz aint not globe earth

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

aint no birds flying cause aint no worms cuz aint not soil earth

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Imagine how poor Pluto would feel if we decided this new entry counted as a proper planet.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Nah, man. Pluto doesn’t care any more. Even as a dwarf planet, he knows he’s still hot shit

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Pluto is the celestial body your Wife tells you not to worry about because “Oh, don’t worry it’s just Pluto coming over when you are out of town, and Pluto isn’t a planet so there is nothing for you to get anxious or jealous about”.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

It'd have to be exceptionally large to clear its orbital path at that distance from the sun. It'll probably join Pluto in the dwarf planet category.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

He should pull himself up by his bootstraps and get his Alpha Planet grindset on. No one can be a proper planet with this Sigma Planet mindset

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Is planet X really discovered?

[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 year ago (3 children)

They found more evidence for its existence recently, but no. Nobody has ever seen it or even found out in which direction to look. The evidence is that the other planets move in ways that only makes sense if there is some mass somewhere pulling their orbits.

Sort of like having to discover the moon from watching the tides in the sea.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Thought there were some significant progress..

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

Well we figured out where to look for it, and it is definitely the sky. We tried looking the last place we left it, and then we looked all around the basement from top to bottom. Yup, we can say with confidence folks, Planet X is hiding somewhere above us.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Yeah well, not really. Next year maybe, according to the article linked yesterday.

https://lemmy.world/post/14670867

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I saw it named planet 9

Named so here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_Nine

Planet X

~~Ceres~~ and Eris didn’t even get turns being planets

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Ceres was considered a planet in the first half of the 1800's, along with a bunch of things in the asteroid belt. There was a point where there were 64 planets.

In the present state of knowledge astronomers give us the following list:
Sixty-four "primary planets" revolving round the Sun as our Earth does.
Twenty satellites, including our Moon.
Of the sixty-four primary planets fifty-six are asteroids, comparatively small bodies, all of which were discovered in this century, and fifty-two since the year 1844.]

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