The Case Against Pluto
published August 21, 2009
In 2006, Pluto rightly lost it's status as a planet and became a "Dwarf Planet." The International Astronomical Union (IAU) voted to drop Pluto as a planet. Here is what it takes to become a planet.
- The object must be in orbit around the Sun. (Check)
- The object must be massive enough to be a sphere by its own gravitational force. More specifically, its own gravity should pull it into a shape of hydrostatic equilibrium. (Check)
- It must have cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit. (Nope!)
So similar to the fact that the autistic boy with an abnormal growth coming out of his neck that I chaperoned once is not my son, Pluto is not a planet.
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What? Elderly white people protesting something without knowing any facts and using silly catch phrases to try to illustrate their point?!
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Well apparently this offended some people. The state of Illinois, where the discoverer of Pluto was from was particularly offended. People gathered and started groups like "Protest for Pluto" to hit the streets and protest. Apparently astronomers everywhere want a revote to make Pluto a planet again because only 5% of the IAU was present when the vote was made. Billboards were placed and there was a public outrage over the classification of Pluto as a 'dwarf planet.' Well, unfortunately for them, Pluto is not a planet, and should not be a planet.
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Seriously? Fear tactics to name Pluto a planet again? Maybe if I start calling Mila Kunis my wife, she'll start acting like my wife. This has to be the dumbest billboard since the "We need to talk - God" billboards.
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First of all, if Pluto was still a planet, we'd have to completely change the way we think about the Solar system. There would be perhaps 3 large rocks in the asteroid belt that could be planets, including the largest, Ceres. In 2005, a 'planet' further out than Pluto was discovered. Dubbed 'Eris', this planet is bigger than Pluto. Then there are some other dwarf planets, including Haumea and Makemake (see below). If Pluto is a planet, then so are all these, with the potential for many many more. We could potentially double the number of planet in our solar system. Mnemonic devices everywhere would be destroyed!
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Pluto is small. Smaller than our moon and certainly smaller than your mother. In fact, Pluto is smaller than 7 moons in our solar system. Pluto has a highly irregular orbit that takes it inside Neptune's orbit. It is also on a different plane than the rest of the planets, somewhere around 38 degrees off. It's made out of the same materials as comets, and if Pluto were closer to the sun, a tail would form just like a comet. In fact, astonomers may be reclassifying Pluto yet again into a "Binary Planet," due to having the largest moon in proportion to it's planet (1/9 as opposed to 1/81 ratio of our moon).
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Scaled picture of Pluto and it's moon and North America.
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One of the biggest arguments againt Pluto is that it's part of the Kuiper belt. The Kuiper belt is like the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, except it's on steroids. It's an immense belt of asteroids, comets, rocks and ice. In fact there are at least 70,000 objects that are larger than 100 km in diameter. The largest of the Kuiper belt objects is Eris. The second largest, is our friend Pluto. No doubt Pluto is just a large Kuiper Belt object, but it certainly is no planet, just like the 70,000 other objects out there and the potential dozens of others with moons.
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While there are some legitimate astronomers arguing for the reinstatment Pluto as a planet, the vast majority are uneducated morons. Most haven't even heard of Eris, or Haumea or Ceres or even the Kuiper belt. Below is one of my favorite arguments for the reinstatement of Pluto as a planet. I've graded it for your amusement.
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