[meteorite-list] And the winner is-- PLUTOID!

From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2008 22:38:34 -0500
Message-ID: <010101c8cd06$f5c25270$8d5ae146_at_ATARIENGINE>

Hi, Jerry, List

    The "Plutoid" page of the Wikipedia rose
to the rank of the 20th most edited page yesterday.
http://www.wikirage.com/wiki/Plutoid/
There were 131 edits by unique editors.

    Here's the page so far.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutoid

    The consensus (if that's what a Wikipedia
page is) seems to be that only 2004 FY9 and
2003 EL61 are candidates, all others to be
dumped. My guess is that 2003 EL61 will
be dumped because of its shape.

    The Bad Astronomy forum, under the topic
"IAU Throws Pluto A Bone" has a suggestion
for a another name which I hadn't thought of
(too old and out of touch): PLUTARDS
http://www.bautforum.com/universe-today-story-comments/75316-iau-throws-pluto-bone-plutoid.html

    They also ask if the "Ceresoids" can be far
behind? (I hope not.) It's hard to remember that
in the year 2000, the discovery of 38628 Huya,
a little 300-mile-diameter Plutino, was so rare. It
was the biggest, brightest object beyond Neptune
ever sighted, and there was talk of calling it the
"tenth planet." It was soon trampled in a rush
of much bigger objects, of course, and the IAU
has gotten much better at ignoring them.

    There are a lot of "former" planets!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Solar_System_bodies_formerly_considered_planets#Former_classifications
    Galileo called the four big moons of Jupiter
"planets." Cassini did the same for the five big
moons of Saturn. In the asteroid zone, Ceres,
Pallas, Juno, and Vesta were "official" planets,
soon followed by Astrea, Hebe, Iris, Flora, Metis,
Hygeia, Parthenope, Victoria, Egeria, Irene, and
Eunomia! That's 15 planets! The planetary notion
was dumped in 1851-1854, so it took 50 years
to decide asteroids weren't planets. (So, between
1801 and 1843, there were 22 planets, and between
1843 and 1851, there were 23! 1854 to 1930, there
were 8; 1930 to 2006, there were 9.)

    Pluto at least lasted for 76 years (and the talk
about dumping it started in 1980 or after 50 years);
it just took longer to accomplish (probably because
it was the only "American" planet, or so it has been
said, accusingly). The future of the planet category
depends on what's Out There.

    IF there is nothing ever found much bigger than
what has already been found, then the Outermost
Solar System is just what the IAU is gambling that
it is, namely, an ice-asteroid belt on the edge of the
Solar System that thins away to nothing -- a bunch
of Plutoids, inconsequential (the position of certain
dynamicists and theoreticians of system formation
who are annoyed that there is anything there, and were
influential in that vote).

    I'm going to omit about 43 pages of discussion of
the possible mass distribution of the Kuiper-Edgeworth
Belt, the power-law coefficient, and statistical arguments
about the largest possible object. Notice that several
people, in response to the "Plutoid" decision, remarked:
"Of course, if someone discovers a Mars-sized KBO,
all this goes out the window..."

    I suspect they're doing similar calculations to what
I am, which give a 40% chance of a Mars-sized and a
60% chance of a Mercury-sized object waiting to be
found (and probably not in the ecliptic). If it happens,
it will be a problem for "Plutoidic" camp.

    If we find a really Big One, they will be looking
for a way out. Next proposal? Demote Mercury to a
"Solar Asteroid" and Mars? Mars becomes "1 Mars,"
the largest member of the Asteroids (followed by 2 Ceres,
2 Pallas), and located on its inner edge, just like Pluto
is located on the inner edge of the Plutoidic Zone, and
it's all good again.

    Textbooks are already being re-written to say of Ceres:
"it was realized that Ceres represented the first of a class
of many similar bodies," the same language being used to
describe Pluto. And all the Wiki's on "planets" are now
fat with Mandarin justifications of IAU etiquette and
definitions (and reducing the information about the actual
bodies themselves). The Emperor has new clothes...

    There are few if any asteroids like Ceres, and I suspect
there are few if any Plutoids "like" Pluto. The similarity
referred to is that they are vaguely in the same part of
the solar system! The so-called "similarities" have nothing
to do with the physical nature of the objects, which to
my mind is what counts.

    Galileo Galilei had some thoughts on naming things.
What better source to consider when defining a planet?
He wrote: "Names and attributes must be accommodated
to the essence of things, and not the essence to the names,
for things come first and names afterward."


Sterling K. Webb
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jerry" <grf2 at verizon.net>
To: "Sterling K. Webb" <sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net>; "Meteorite List"
<meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 2:35 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] And the winner is-- PLUTOID!


> OK. It will no doubt come as a great surprise to the Executive
> Committee of the IAU (henceforth referred to as "Executoids")

Sterling, you never fail to charm your way into a most subtle form of humor
while elucidating the nuts and bolts of a gritty, in this case, language
dilemma.

Jerry Flaherty
Received on Thu 12 Jun 2008 11:38:34 PM PDT