Eliezer: “We know where Pluto is, and where it’s going; we know Pluto’s shape, and Pluto’s mass—but is it a planet? And yes, there were people who said this was a fight over definitions...”
It was a fight over definitions. Astronomers were trying to update their nomenclature to better handle new data (large bodies in the Kuiper belt). Pluto wasn’t quite like the other planets but it wasn’t like the other asteroids either. So they called it a dwarf-planet. Seems pretty reasonable to me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_planet
Once again, great post.
Eliezer: “We know where Pluto is, and where it’s going; we know Pluto’s shape, and Pluto’s mass—but is it a planet? And yes, there were people who said this was a fight over definitions...”
It was a fight over definitions. Astronomers were trying to update their nomenclature to better handle new data (large bodies in the Kuiper belt). Pluto wasn’t quite like the other planets but it wasn’t like the other asteroids either. So they called it a dwarf-planet. Seems pretty reasonable to me. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_planet