this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2026
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Size doesn't matter
Correct, it's called planet when it orbits arround the Sun AND has cleaned it's orbit from asteroids, not the case of Pluto, whose orbit is still full of other objects, some even bigger than Pluto itself.
If it orbits an Planet instead of the Sun, it's a Moon, even if it is bigger than some other planets.
Jupiter has a permanent cloud of asteroids that follow it and neptune crosses the orbit of pluto so neither of those have cleared their orbits so of course they made exceptions so that their contrived definition fits.
Jupiter's Trojan asteroids sit at Lagrange points. Material found there is not counted in the 'clearing the orbit' criteria. They are in stable orbits caused by the mass of the planet in question, not in lieu of a massive enough body.
Well of course that was the exception they had to come up with for their contrived rule. The exception is: "whatever it takes to make pluto not a planet". Since the vote was agenda fueled and not a scientific discussion.
Once something new is discovered and breaks the rules they will have to modify the contrived rule to keep pluto not a planet.
Hold on. What agenda wants Pluto to not be a planet?
Someone printed out a buncha shirts with only 8 solar orbits in the system. Obviously easier to lobby Pluto off the team than to reprint the shirts.
And they would have gotten away with it, if not for that one guy arguing about it on Lemmy in 2026.
Tbf, if you were going to keep Pluto in the definition you'd have to include 200+ other orbits
What is going to be funny is if/when they discover planet 9, and all the apparent Pluto superfans just utterly lose their shit when they attempt to comprehend that there can be another actual planet, and no, pluto still doesn't count.
"Something something something jews"
And what agenda is that? To mine the planet in secret so not to upset the environmentalists?
Yes, that's how science goes. Simple explanations and definitions often fall apart upon further discovery and require caveats that sometimes even reinforce the intention.
I agree except in this instance the goal was to keep Earth's classification important. No other scientific objective. Just seemed very geocentric to me.