How do we Pastafarians feel about the demotion of Pluto?

[Almighty Doer of Stuff]

I'm just pleased that the solar system once again matches Gustav Holst's "The Planets" suite, as it should be. Now we don't need those crappy, third-party extensions. :-P

[CommanderTako]

Does anyone have any idea where we stand on this?

Is Pluto a planet any more to us?

Pluto always has been and always shall be a moon.

Just because the FSM past out from intoxication before finishing the creation of the planet Pluto is the moon of, and let the proto-planet roll into Earth, creating Earth's moon; that doesn't mean Pluto isn't a moon.

[Arkaeon]

I think the distinction that the astronomers settled on was in defining "cleared the neighborhood."
They decided that "cleared the neighborhood" doesn't mean that nothing else is in their orbit, but that anything of significant size that does inhabit that region long term is either an orbiting moon of the planet or has been locked into its course by the gravity of that planet. Also, Jupiter is so bloody huge that it actually pulls stuff into its neighborhood, so it will never be completely clear, because it is self-cluttering. But considering that it probably "cleared" whole planets like Uranus from its "neighborhood" and has Saturn in 5:2 orbital resonance lock, no one argues against its qualifications as a planet.

Ceres is smaller than Alaska and has a surface gravity of less than 3% of Earth's. If you tried to run on it, you'd keep accidentally pushing yourself into orbit. That's just not a planet. Being the biggest of a group of things that aren't planets doesn't make it a planet. It was only ever considered a planet because they hadn't found all those bazillions of other relatively little things out there.

Eris and Pluto are in the same neighborhood, with umpty-doodle thousands of other things, and none of them have gravitic "clear" of the region. They have 6-8% of earth's gravity, so you might actually need a Wile E. Coyote jetpack to get into orbit, but not much more.

From the time I spent reading about the debates on this issue, it seemed that, in the end, the astronomical societies decided to call them all "dwarf planets" so the general lay population could think of them any way they wanted to. The "dwarf planet" designation has little or no meaning, scientifically, that I could find. It was just a way to end the argument and get back to work.

New trick for remember the (dwarfs and) Planets in order?:
"Man Very Early Made ceramic Jars, Some Uses Never passed extinct

At any rate, I'd suggest that Pastafarians not try to interfere with scientific naming conventions that are really only of use to the scientists who make them. A dwarf planet, by any other name, still... will put a great big frakking dent in your space cruiser if you run into one.

[Tigger_the_Wing]

Thanks for the info, Ark - but why would I want a space cruiser? At sub-light speeds it would be even more boring to travel in space than driving between Australian cities; and that is boooooooring.

[DavidH]

Us've got enough trouble agreeing on the name of the road between here and Burghill. As long as these yer planets don't frighten the sheep, us don't care a damn what they calls un.

[Arkaeon]

Tig, I think one of the most fun surveys on that "Why would I want a space cruiser?" idea is:

"Jose Jimenez The Astronaut, parts 1 & 2" (Bill Dana, 1960). It searches on youtube for the audio [8min:19sec]

[gronank]

Shouldn't we, as Pastafarians, be perfectly content with that Pluto is a midgit planet?

[Tigger_the_Wing]

Perfect!

[Ravi Oli]

What is this planet debate thingy about when everyone knows Pluto is a dog!?

[Arkaeon]

The Wiki article suggests that Pluto the dog was named after Pluto the celestial body. The cartoon character was introduced shortly after the announcement of the discovery of the planetoid, so the two are linked, although the reasons why Walt chose this name are known only to the deceased egomaniac's supernatural consciousness, if any.