OO[R]T: Did Pluto's Performance Justify Re-eval Of Its Elite Status?
TO TRANSLATE FOR NON-SCIENTIFICALLY INCLINED SPORTS FANS: There was this player. He was for a while thought to be among the ELITE, one of the very very best. But then some folks were like, ehhh, he doesn't look like all the other Elites, he doesn't play in nearly the same league, his game is different. But the scales decidedly tipped when we found this other guy in his same league, who we thought was just as good or a bit better, and so we don't want to open the floodgates to everyone being elite, so we'll reclassifiy [read: demote] this guy as "dwarf elite.". Take a star away, right, you were just a four-star all along.
That's Pluto, right. Just a dwarf planet. Not one of the big boys. Not a planet. Orbit is way out of the planetary plane, shape of orbit is unnatural (dips inside Neptune's orbit), and then we discovered Eres in the Kuiper Belt which appeared to be bigger than Pluto, and we are sure there are lots more of them in the KB, so either we have dozens of planets or we just say Pluto and Eres aren't planets. We make up a new definition of dwarf planet, and it turns out not only are Pluto and Eres dwarf planets, but the largest asteroid Ceres (not a KBO) also meets that definition. And now we have only 8 planets and we're all set.
BUT: Then we saw the guy in a game up close, and we should all be like, dude, he's elite.
Did seeing that photo of Pluto from a couple days ago change anyone's mind? It did mine. It's a planet. I'm not sure how to define it, but I know one when I see one, and Pluto looks like a planet. Compare how it looks to Ceres (one of the other three dwarf planets). Ceres looks like a big asteroid, a huge rock, which it is. Pluto looks like a planet. Period.
Who's with me?
[And yes, I know the title is in error, it's in the Kuiper Belt, not the Oort cloud, but I was typing OOT and just couldn't resist.]
This won't be settled until we get Jim Harbaugh to personally evaluate Pluto in a camp setting. The man can spot what it takes to be considered elite.
If Harbaugh doesn't care about star ratings, he certainly won't be influenced by mere planet ratings.
With Pluto being less than 2 stars will it's committment put us over the limit?
All hail Eris Discordia. /fnord.
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I gotta admit....Pluto is a cool-looking ball of rock. I did kinda think maybe it could be re-planetized. But putting Pluto back in the planet category is kind of like adding Rutgers to the Big Ten. Sure, Scarlet Knights is a cool nickname, and Rutgers was great back in the day....way back in the day. But they don't bring anything and they mess up the symmetry and if you think Rutgers is worthy of being in the Big Ten then why not dozens of other programs?
Besides, neat as Pluto looks, there are some moons in this solar system that look way cooler. If that's the only criterion I propose Callisto as a planet. It hasn't managed to get rid of Jupiter from its orbit around the sun, but I don't know how you could turn down a giant floating disco ball.
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I always thought declassifying Pluto as a planet was the height of nit-picking. But I guess, what do astronomers have to do except sit around and nitpick?
Now they have a bunch more data to nitpick over.
The only difference between Pluto today and Pluto before the flyby is that we have higher resolution pictures of it, and we know it's about 2 kilometers bigger in diameter.
Why would that change how it's classified?
It's a Dwarf Planet and Kuiper Belt Object.
Pluto mountain ranges (close up via New Horizons)
Pluto and her moon Charon (last shots before New Horizons flyby)
