Defining 'Planet': Newfound World Forces Action

[Dover]

"The word planet is simply not a scientific word, it is a cultural word."
- Mike Brown, leader of the "10th planet" discovery team


The claim Friday that a 10th planet has been discovered in our solar system has set off a fresh round of debate and international talks aimed at defining the most vexing term in astronomy: the word planet.

A formal proposal could come within a week or two. But some astronomers see no easy resolution.

Now, the guy who stirred the latest dust is trying to snuff the whole debate by repositioning planet as a cultural term that no longer has any scientific meaning.

"Scientists have for the most part not yet realized that the term planet no longer belongs to them," says Caltech's Mike Brown, who led the discovery of the new larger-than-Pluto object.

Brown's new view comes after contemplating six years of mostly fruitless scientific arguments that began when the public became outraged over a rumor that scientists planned to demote Pluto, a rumor rooted in the fact that some astronomers had already stopped calling Pluto a planet by the late 1990s.

"I finally realized the mistake we astronomers had been making all along," Brown told SPACE.com yesterday. "The word planet is simply not a scientific word, it is a cultural word. Once you get over that trap the rest becomes easy."..cont'd

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/050802_planet_definition.html

[benburch]

1. I suggest a rational approach.

Pluto sized or bigger = planet.

[DrJackson]

2. Good thought

One of the new Kuiper Belt objects that was discovered is actually larger than Pluto. Not that I have a problem with living in a 10 planet (and probably growing as we find more of these objects) solar system...

[norml]

3. Planet Brown

If he lead the team that found it then it gets named after him.

It's only fair.

[phantom power]

4. I like his suggestion. Don't worry about formally defining it.

But if I had to define it, I would define it in such a way that neither Pluto nor these new Pluto-like objects are planets. These new objects are Kuiper belt objects, and so is Pluto.

[Bill McBlueState]

5. I agree

Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune form a class of objects -- well, really two classes of objects -- substantially different from the KBOs or the asteroids or the comets. It'll be messy to start including every large Kuiper Belt Object among the planets.