12 Planets?

[Harmon]

I might be subjected to a condition where my sex drive peaks once every seven years.

Might fit with most gamers chances at getting some.

 

[occam]

Categories aren't meant to advance discussions and prompt questions. They are simply there as an organizational tool. Something that can be used to definitively distinguish one set from another.

I would argue that they're both. But I wanted ask something else: Based on what you've said here, it sounds as if it doesn't matter all that much to you what the ultimate decision is on the definition of a "planet", merely that there is one and that it's clear. Is that right? (A moot question, now, I guess.)

 

[occam]

Well, Occam, you get your wish.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/space/08/24/pluto.ap/index.html

Futher reading on the new definition, though, is interesting.

"Planet" is still not based on details of formation or composition. It is still basically a matter of size:

If it orbits the sun, is round, and is in a wide swath of cleared space, it is a planet.

If it orbits the sun, is round, but doesn't sit in cleared space (like Ceres and Pluto), it is a "dwarf planet".

Other bits that aren't round are "small solar system bodies".

So, basically, a planet is anything big enough to have swallowed up the debris in its orbit.

And swallowing up the debris in its orbit is exactly what I was alluding to in comments about theorizing similar origins for all planets. I view that criterion as relating directly to formation processes.

In fact, I think that criterion would've been enough to separate planets out from other things. They could've left out the roundedness criterion and still had the same result. It would be a side effect that something big enough to have cleared out its orbit would've collected enough mass to become round. Still, until a non-round object that's cleared out its orbit is found in another star system (perhaps orbiting a brown dwarf? - in which case it'll be a long time before we can find one), I suppose it doesn't make much difference.

 

[kenobi65]

Will Benson find out?

Will Benson care?

Someone got it! WOOT!!

 

[Umbran]

And swallowing up the debris in its orbit is exactly what I was alluding to in comments about theorizing similar origins for all planets. I view that criterion as relating directly to formation processes.

I don't. Whether the orbit is cleared depends on the size of the body, and density of material in the orbit, not the other details of the process by which the body was produced.

Two bodies can form by the same process, but if by some accident one does not become large enough, it won't clear the orbit. Similarly, if you happen to have a body that was bascially formed by a different process, it can clear an orbit that still contains clutter.

And, of course, if you take a body formed by any process at all, and toss it into an area that was cleared by other means, it'll qualify as a planet. And given collisions and close passes of unstable bodies in early solar systems, this is not a far-fetched possibility.

Lastly - you talk a great deal about how differences of formation processes, when we don't agree on what they are yet. Some suggest that the process by which Jupiter and large Kupier Belt objects form is the same - they simply happen in different places, with different particle densities and types available.

 

[ph34r]

I can just imagine a parent trying to convince their kid that Pluto isn't a planet when they just learned it in school a few months ago. Could be an interesting conversation.

 

[BOZ]

Someone got it! WOOT!!

Soap?

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Soap?

Don't drop it.

 

[DaveMage]

Soap?

Confused? You won't be....

 

[kenobi65]

Soap?

Indeed.