Don’t worry, there is already a Cthulhu Regio in Pluto, although the name hasn’t been officialized yet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cthulhu_Regio

Pluto is a planet and anyone who says otherwise is a nerd and should be given a serious wedgie.

Exactly. We need more categories, not fewer. Gas giants, ice giants, superterrestrials, terrestrials, dwarfs, whatever else is needed.

Any planetary classification system that lumps Earth and Jupiter together is a stupid system.

Sort of, like... there may be more Trojan’s than there are asteroids in the asteroid belt. The Greeks and Trojans have been shoved neatly into place by Jupiter. Reletively speaking there are not many objects that are not held firmly in place or long ago nudged elsewhere. The Centaurs that cross Jupiters path are about…

By the IAU’s idiotic definition, the only planets are the gas giants. Its stupid and petty. Show any schoolkid a picture of Pluto and ask them if its a planet, and the answer will be “yes”. The foolish IAU ruling ignores common sense, in favor of an attention getting “Ruling” that was intended to generate…

(let’s be honest, nobody really paid much attention to Pluto until its status was changed)

You only “lose” Pluto if you buy into the “clearing the orbital neighborhood” BS.

Not necessarily, Jupiter has not cleared its orbit since it is accompanied by about 100,000 Trojan asteroids. Going by the strict wording of the definition, Jupiter is not a planet.

I believe more (reasonable) people would be more willing to accept Pluto’s demotion to dwarf planet if the definition used to do it wasn’t so bad. The IAU’s definition forces scientists to take location into account, which is sort of dumb. If an Earth-sized body were out in the Kuiper belt, there’s a good chance it…

You just broken Pluto’s dwarf planet heart. I HOPE YOU ARE HAPPY!

The only problem with the ‘clears its orbit’ definition, IMO, is it’s not entirely clear that Earth has cleared its orbit, IMO.

I wonder if it would make sense to send out a telescope far out into the solar system, to give us a different (and closer) vantage point to both known and unknown distant bodies in our own solar system, so we could get a better look/have a better chance at finding them.

Hell, it could be the size of Jupiter and it wouldn’t be a planet. Yes, the definition is fucked.

It definitely highlights how stupid the “clear its orbit” prong of the definition is.

I couldn’t believe how NBC covered the Karolyis, with Leslie Jones clowning around with Bela, and then a complete valentine of a feature on the history of the Karolyi program.

If I had to rate my level of surprise on a scale of 1 to 10 where 0 is “saw it coming from a mile away” and 10 is “completely, utterly blindsided”, I’m registering about negative million.

Not gonna take the time to read the article, just came here to say NO SHIT. There has been considerable documented history here, for DECADES across different CONTINENTS with the Karolyi’s....I was blown away when I saw those 2 coaching for the USA in Brazil. There are a lot of issues with this, but it all boils down…

“I felt like I was being herded into a concentration camp or something.”