I have new found respect for New Mexico!

[anawim]

I recently found out that NM is the only state in the US that still recognizes Pluto as a Planet. Apparently, the astronomer who discovered Pluto was from NM, so to honor his memory, in 2007, the state legislature officially acknowledges the existence of Pluto as the ninth planet.

Let the memes begin

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

He was actually born just a few miles from where I'm sitting in Central IL, but he moved to New Mexico, died there, and is buried there. Well, mostly buried there. Some of his ashes were sent to space on the New Horizons mission to Pluto.

[anawim]

He was actually born just a few miles from where I'm sitting in Central IL, but he moved to New Mexico, died there, and is buried there. Well, mostly buried there. Some of his ashes were sent to space on the New Horizons mission to Pluto.

[Highlander]

Unecessary ...

[Highlander]

... repetition.

[Highlander]

Clyde Tombaugh discovered the planet ... or a Kuiper Belt object, depending on your POV.

However, I think the NM legislature was commemorating Mickey's dog. We get confused round here about stuff like that. One example is the claim that an annual local community Catholic pilgrimage has been conducted since prehistoric times. We do have a great pilgrimage ... to El Santuario de Chimayo.

To the uninitiated, the yearly pilgrimage to the Santuario de Chimayo in northern New Mexico may seem an incredible, if not strange, sight. Thousands of people walking in droves along the path leading to a sleepy town in the hills north of Santa Fe is something that is certainly an uncommon sight, both to locals and visitors alike. To the modern eye, the sight of thousands of people all forgoing motorized transportation to travel, in some cases, hundreds of miles along dusty paths and perfectly drive-able roadways is a troubling thought.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

You can say that again.

[Highlander]

I would, but it is exhausting.

Let me clean that up....

[Riverboat]

I still consider it a planet. It has a moon. So there.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

It has several moons!

[Riverboat]

It has several moons!

That seals the deal.

[Highlander]

So, if it has several moons, and having several moons makes it a planet....

... and ....

the Earth has only one moon...

... so ...

the Earth is not a planet.


If that logic was good enough for Monty Python, then it's good enough for me.

[Riverboat]

I said it has a moon. Ergo, it's a planet. Obi-Wan pointed out it has several (five that we know of). To my way of thinking, this makes a more powerful argument than a single moon.

Point of fact, I was pretty sure it had two, not just one. So much to learn here!

[Doom]

So, if it has several moons, and having several moons makes it a planet....

... and ....

the Earth has only one moon...

... so ...

the Earth is not a planet.


If that logic was good enough for Monty Python, then it's good enough for me.

The problem is that one of the "moons" around the orbit is bigger than Pluto itself. A planet can have many things in orbit around it, but it should itself be the biggest thing. A moon should be smaller than the planet.

Many critics of the 2006 vote point out that only 5% of working astronomers voted for it at the IAU meeting in August of that year. So the decision doesn't in any meaningful sense represent a consensus view.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

Pluto's biggest moon is Charon, which is about half the diameter and 1/8 the mass of Pluto. It's big enough that both bodies rotate around a point outside of Pluto, but Charon isn't bigger.

[Doom]

Eris is nearly twice the size of Pluto, and close observation through the Hubble telescope have uncovered the Kuiper. belt, a large group of asteroids near Pluto which suggests it may just be a big asteroid.

It is often forgotten even by experts that before Pluto was discovered, three other objects now believed to be large asteroids in the Kuiper belt were once counted as planets.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

But Eris doesn't orbit Pluto, so I'm not sure what you mean by "around the orbit".

[Doom]

According to the 2006 definition, a planet has to be "dominant in its immediate neighborhood", dominant meaning "the biggest object", which Pluto is not because Eris is bigger. But the other 8 planets absolutely are the biggest thing in their immediate neighborhood.

Some complain that this part of the definition was added specifically for the purpose of excluding Pluto from the planets. This is true, the IAU had spent years trying to come up with some reason why Pluto would be different from the 8 planets.

[Obi-Wan Kenobi]

I know. I don't think Eris is what they had in mind with the phrase "neighborhood," although it's not entirely clear what they did have in mind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearing_ ... ghbourhood

Stern, the principal investigator of the New Horizons mission to Pluto, disagreed with the reclassification of Pluto on the basis of its inability to clear a neighbourhood. He argued that the IAU's wording is vague, and that — like Pluto — Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Neptune have not cleared their orbital neighbourhoods either. Earth co-orbits with 10,000 near-Earth asteroids (NEAs), and Jupiter has 100,000 trojans in its orbital path. "If Neptune had cleared its zone, Pluto wouldn't be there", he said.

[Highlander]

So, per the above, the Solar System now has four planets.

This is fun.