chat

Dwarf planets don't get included in the solar system models. That's the limit of most people's understanding.

Is it some religious thing where evangelicals are trying to throw shade at science for "changing its mind"

It's not religious necessarily, but it is absolutely tied in with cultural anti-intellectualism. I'd say astronomers are catching a stray on this one as a result of all of the other things that have been turned into culture war political talking points.

It's possibly as simple as it being part of recitation when kids learned the solar system's planets and now it's just not. Some folks have a real hard time wrapping their head around the idea that a 'fact' they learned and knew their whole life has been decided changed. Or maybe that isn't it. I dunno. My concern for Pluto is mostly just for shitpost value. I don't really give a rip whether it can clear its own orbit or not.

Rock and Stone is good in my book.

Jokes aside, why do people see "dwarf planet" as a demotion? It's simply is different type of planet. It's literally still called a planet, a dwarf one.

It's also not like it's the first time. The dwarf planet Ceres was once considered a planet until it was reclassified in light of so many other objects sharing its orbit.

The IAU redefinition, which only 441 out of nearly 10,000 members were present for the vote for it, and did not have the six months of advance notice required by their own bylaws, and is not at all used in the scientific literature apart from explicitly talking about the definition itself, made it explicit that they do not consider dwarf planets to be planets.

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