Rebel Astronomers Petition to Restore Planetary Status

[mikeemmert]

Yahoo! News reports that a number of astronomers have signed a petition to restore Pluto's planetary status:<br /><br />"<font color="yellow">PARIS (AFP) - Only a week after Pluto was stripped of its status as a full-fledged planet of the Solar System, rebel astronomers have launched a campaign to have it restored in pomp and glory.<br /> <br />A petition already signed by more than 300 professional researchers is attacking the International Astronomical Union (IAU) decision to expel Pluto from the Solar System's A-list and doom it to the status of "dwarf planet".<br /><br />"We as planetary scientists and astronomers do not agree with the IAU's definition of a planet, nor will we use it. A better definition is needed," says the protest, placed on the Web at<br /><br />http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/planetprotest<br /><br />The petition organiser, Mark Sykes, who is director of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona, said the IAU definition of a planet "does not meet fundamental scientific standards and should be set aside."<br /><br />"A more open process, involving a broader cross-section of the community engaged in planetary studies of our own Solar System and others should be undertaken," Sykes said.<br /><br />The British magazine New Scientist said on its website Friday that the rebels intend to stage a conference next year to fix the definition of a planet. As many as 1,000 astronomers will attend, they hope.<br /><br />A co-sponsor of the petition is Alan Stern, executive director of the Center for Space Exploration Policy Research at the US Southwest Research Institute.<br /><br />Stern heads NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto. Its spacecraft -- which also bears some of the ashes of US astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto in 1930 -- blasted off in January this year, m</font>

 

[jakethesnake]

Come on…. what is at issue here is that there now appears to be more celestial bodies out there which are the size and/or mass of Pluto or greater. The IAU could have come up with something more definitive than a planet “clearing its neighbourhood” to annex Pluto! This is just a classification to limit the planet count in our solar system, due to the worries that there might be too many planets to remember! <br /><br />To use a logical set of scientific parameters to define a planet is barely known at this time especially when we don’t quite know the upper mass limit of when a planet becomes a “Brown dwarf” although, we do know the lower mass limit in which a planet becomes spherical but this is used to define a “Dwarf Planet” not a “Planet”, what a bunch of CRAP! Also, if I here KBO one more time I’m going to throw up, mass is mass regardless of where the planet resides!!! <br /><br />I think we should have just waited a few years with what’s coming on-line with the Spitzer Space Telescope and the New Horizons probe along with other up and coming technologies to get a better idea of what is fact and what is not! <br /><br />If you want to use science to define what is right in front of your face then I agree but, this is not science, this is the declassification of a planet due to the fear that there might be to many. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong></strong> </div>

 

[harmonicaman]

I dunno...<br /><br />I think the IAU was just trying to put similar objects together with other like objects. I agree that the parameters behind the decision aren't very well defined but (hopefully) this can be straightened out down the road...<br /><br />I also agree that the decision on Pluto didn't have to be made at this time. <img src="/images/icons/rolleyes.gif" />

 

[serak_the_preparer]

Some links on this subject were posted by Yours Truly on the Demote The IAU!!!! thread. In case they're of any interest:<br /><br />Astronomers Behaving Badly by Steve Maran (Live Science)<br /><br />The planetary name game Opinion (Daily Herald)<br /><br />Pluto vote 'hijacked' in revolt by Paul Rincon (BBC)

 

[jaxtraw]

The whole fundamental flaw in your argument regarding "a new class of objects" and "pluto clearly doesn't belong there" is that anybody can see as clear as the nose on their face that Jupiter and Mercury aren't part of the same class of objects either. Your analogy regarding dinosaurs is flawed. The current situation is more like defining all big things as one class (elephants, lions, tyrannosaurs and brontosaurs) and then a new class for rats because they live in groups and are small. Or indeed "Mammals are all animals larger than 1m high, except if they live in South America, in which case they're called Dwarf Mammals, regardless of size, and a Dwarf Mammal isn't a Mammal.".<br /><br />I mean really. Gas giants and small rocky planets are one class on their own, but small icy planets are not included? Makes no sense at all.<br /><br />Really, the whole thing is driven by the selfish desire to pretend that the Earth is a major solar system body. Which it isn't.

 

[jakethesnake]

Well put and thank you! <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <strong></strong> </div>

 

[mikeemmert]

Thank you for your post, Serak_the_Preparer. I was a little leery starting a thread on this because there are so many other threads. But I decided to because there is an actual petition, by distinguished astronomers, to overthrow the new ruling. Dr. Stern led the team that discovered Nix and Hydra and went to the considerable effort to launch a rocket towards Pluto.<br /><br />I don't think of Pluto's reclassification as a "demotion". And certainly Dr. Stern and the others with him are not "demoted" by this decision.<br /><br />But it's really important to set the definition right, so that proper studies can be made of the Solar system.

 

[vandivx]

<"It's a totaly arbitrary decision, based upon a vote by a very few, more of an oligarchy than not."><br />why do they have so much respect or power that they can change textbooks and attract such a widespread notice of the whole world<br />and why are they 'few', is membership in that body so exclusive that few qualify? are membership criteria respected by astronomer community or what<br /><br /><"Good science is based upon clear cut, important, solidly based concepts, which avoid arbitrary designations." /><br />problem is, how much has defining a concept (like what makes a body a planet) to do with special science such as astronomy in this case?<br /><br />the concept of a planet existed how long, I bet it took roots in times when astronomy was still more like astrology, planet then was a celestial body orbiting sun and even if people in those days could conceive of asteroids and didn't think comets finger of God they wouldn't call those planets since planets meant certain size, significance, regularity in orbit and appearance in skies and such likes<br /><br />there was no more to it then and there shouldn't be today, let astronomers make their own special terminology for their academic use and let people have their 'unscientific' concepts of what makes a planet a planet<br /><br />following that rule, Pluto would be a planet if only for its historical appearance, if new bodies are found out there on the perifery of solar system, let time determine what will people call those, if they will also give them planetary status, given ordinary folk common sense<br /><br />making scientific definition of planets once for all times is misguided IMO and I should fear that if that is what awaits us<br /><br />thank god those latin Romans made concepts for us, without them there would now be incessant rif-raf and mankind would never get anything done if we had to make our own LOL<br /><br />vanDivX <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[djtt]

dwarf planet suits me fine really

 

[cuddlyrocket]

Stern is not going to win by doing this. It's one thing to disagree with the definition and to argue, or even campaign to get it changed (including proposing changes to the way the decision is reached), it's another thing entirely to seek to undermine the authority of the IAU itself!<br /><br />Stern will draw opposition not only from those who support the new definition (and remember, they <i>won</i> the vote - also, the executive board of the largest group of planetary astronomers supported the original draft definition, but found that <i>a majority of their members</i> did not), but also from those who will rally round to preserve the authority of the IAU - and that authority is accepted for good reason, without it there'd be a free-for-all in many areas, which is not conducive to good science.<br /><br />I think Stern can expect some harsh criticism coming his way for this aspect.

 

[jmilsom]

I actually agree with Serak as well. They should not have rushed it.<br /><br />But I do disagree with the initail argument you make. You use the analogy of a dinosaur. Well... the longest dinosuar <i>Diplodocus</i> was 89ft in length. The smallest, including <i>Microraptor</i> were under 2ft in length.<br /><br />Not from a passionate 'I love Pluto' point of view, but from a rational scientific point of view, I find myself disappointed with the current definition. <br /><br />I think it would be great to call pluto a dwarf planet - if a dwarf planet were a planet!<br /><br />I think it would be better to have the word planet as the root taxon, with the definition based on achieving spherical shape through hydrostatic equilibrium and then define your different classes after this. I do not think the current definition leaves enough flexibility for the variation we are likely to find in extrasolar systems and even the remote possibility in our own that there may be a large oligarch much larger than Pluto but in a more deranged orbit and probably not having cleared its orbit.<br /><br />I am shying out the debate a little as it has got a bit too passionate and many are arguing the case for the wrong reasons. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[mikeemmert]

Thank you, jmilsom;<br /><br />I think taxonomy is very important to better understand any science. And I think that in the case of planethood, orbital dynamics should be the defining factor. They explain such things as why Ceres never formed a planet, and the true nature not only of Pluto, but of at least two hundred other objects, many of them very large.<br /><br />Remember that Neptune was found by examining the perturbations of Uranus. It's entirely possible that other important discoveries could be made this way.<br /><br />Now, jmilsom, you have read some of my other posts and understand that I'm biased in this. Might as well disclose that. Pluto is a Lagrangian, one of the few surviving members of that class, most of which have crashed.<br /><br />Other classes of objects await discovery. Sedna and 2004 XR190 are good examples. They are still a mystery, all I can tell you about them is that they are not planets or Lagrangians or asteroids and may or may not be Kuiper belt objects. I don't know what they are. Classifying, say, Sedna as a planet because it's large enough to be a sphere (or, more technically, an ellipsoid of which a sphere is a special case) obscures it's origin and keeps us a little more ignorant of the history of our own solar system.

 

[aidan13791]

I have nothing to add here other than the fact that I strongly feel that we should add to the list of planets instead of taking things away.

 

[jaxtraw]

"I think it would be great to call pluto a dwarf planet - if a dwarf planet were a planet! <br /><br />I think it would be better to have the word planet as the root taxon, with the definition based on achieving spherical shape through hydrostatic equilibrium and then define your different classes after this. "<br /><br />Eloquently put.

 

[rhm3]

I agree completely. I think we should use the term planet to simply define any object that has pulled itself into a spheroidal shape and is not, or never was, a star. <br /><br />It can be divided based on orbit...<br /><br />Primary planet: orbits star<br />Secondary planet: orbits planet<br />Rogue planet: drifts freely in space<br /><br />And also divided based on mass/size...<br /><br />Giant planet: massive enough to be gaseous<br />Terrestrial planet: solid, massive enough for gases in its hill sphere to form atmosphere, not massive enough to be a giant planet<br />Dwarf planet: solid and round, but not massive enough to be a terrestrial planet<br /><br />So Earth is primary terrestrial planet, Enceladus is a secondary dwarf planet, etc. Also, we can still use "satellite" when referring to all objects (planet or not) orbiting a common body.