this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2026
940 points (97.3% liked)

Science Memes

18093 readers
1419 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] girsaysdoom@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

I'd agree with you but the definition is arbitrary and is not of Natural Kind. Even worse, instead of making the definition of a planet more clear it just makes the determining what is a planet more difficult.

Honestly, if they just went with defining 'Major Planets', 'Minor Planets', and asteroids determined by mass and spherical shape, I think everyone would've moved on by now.

[–] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

it just makes the determining what is a planet more difficult.

If this is true, then please tell me what totally non-arbitrary reason there was for Ceres to not be universally considered a planet?

[–] girsaysdoom@sh.itjust.works 0 points 4 days ago

I'm not sure what you mean. It should be a planet by the definition I gave before unless I didn't convey what I was trying to say correctly. It's definitely large, heavy, and spherical enough to be a planet in my opinion.

There's tons of different sized objects in our solar system and it's distinguishable enough to qualify in this one.