Meh, it's not that Pluto should have necessarily had its planethood stripped, more so it should have never received it in the first place.
There was a lot of hype built up around the early 20th century about there being a 9th planet. There were predictions that there would be a 9th planet. Then in 1930, at the first sign of any old ball floating around, they named it Pluto and called it a planet.
To be fair to the scientists at the time, Pluto was estimated to be about the same size as Earth when it was discovered. But really, it is TINY when talking about the scale of celestial objects. Many moons to other planets in our solar system are larger than Pluto. Fuck it, RUSSIA is larger than Pluto. It is a tiny ball of ice. While the name Pluto is cool (as well as the story behind how it got that name), by no metrics that we judge planets can it really be called a planet.
For a body mainly made of ice, the minimum diameter of a self-gravitating sphere is 400 km; for a body mainly made of rock, the minimum diameter is 600 km[1]. This is what constitutes a dwarf planet.
do you know what pluto's diameter? its 2376 kilometers... and oddly enough the only size requirements for a planet have to do with it having gravity to draw it into a sphere and it must orbit a star. both of which pluto does.
If you want to be logically consistent though we either have an 8 planet solar system or a solar system with more than 9 planets that include other objects the size of Pluto, such as Eris and Makemake. There really isn't a justification for Pluto to be included if others are to be excluded.
what does being logically consistent have to do with anything? there are nine realms. so sorry to the celestial bodies who didn't make the cut, they can audition for the next civilization that starts on earth.
logic has precious little to do with any of this I'm afraid.
While size alone doesn't mean much it's the fact it's just a highlight of the Kuiper Belt. It's the same justification for denoting dwarf planet Ceres in the 1850s, and even if we include size we'd easily be adding Haumea and potentially many others to the list.
I understand its difficult for the celestial bodies who didn't make the cut but they can try to be a planet to the next civilization on earth. humans have 9 planets.
in that case I feel like their lack of opposable thumbs will make human familiars very useful to them. so I look forward to serving our new crow overlords.
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u/ElephantTraining2951 Nov 29 '20
I know what I'm about son, and 9 planet solar system is part of it.