Comment by nemomarx
10 hours ago
How to keep Pluto as a planet but say larger objects than it that also orbit the sun aren't planets, is the question I guess?
10 hours ago
How to keep Pluto as a planet but say larger objects than it that also orbit the sun aren't planets, is the question I guess?
Literally say Pluto is a planet through the collective statements of parties involved.
This is like when English professors gripe about word usage in books. That's wrong, you can't do that. Then society at large does it and it becomes correct usage. We define our world.
It's basically a question of definition: we define Pluto as a planet and the others as Kuiper Belt Objects (KBO)
As human beings we're allowed to make these kind of decisions. We define ourselves to be outside of the animal kingdom when we're clearly part of it and a type of animal ourselves.
The question would be what are the specific rules that lead to that, and how you'd apply those rules outside of our own solar system. Any rule that just calls those distant objects KBOs is specific to our own solar system which is a silly rule to be making in a world where we already knew about hundreds of exoplanets.
The question at hand is "how do we define a planet" from a universal standpoint, because it hadn't really been defined beyond an "I know it when I see it" level and that was becoming a problem.
Objective rules that do not assume you're talking about our solar system are key here, and the serious proposals basically come down to 8 planets or dozens and growing, and from a practical standpoint the former was the obvious choice IMO since all it really affects is what gets focused on in general education environments.
If you just want to make an arbitrary decision that these things are planets because you want them to be as opposed to because they meet certain criteria, that's not useful to anyone.
If you must insist on squaring the circle:
Pluto is the Princeps of Kuiper Belt Objects, the First Among Equals. It is the most honored KBO, even if it is not a planet.
But why? There is no reason to care about the classification of Pluto. Why don't you just define that you're okay with it not being a planet?