(July 13, 2023 at 6:45 pm)Gawdzilla Sama Wrote:(July 13, 2023 at 10:15 am)Anomalocaris Wrote: many astronomers suspect there is in fact an additional undiscovered major body much more qualified to be called planet than pluto out there in the outer solar system to bring the number back up to 9.
The issue with including pluto to keep it at 9 is pluto is indistinguishable from a number of other objects we recently discovered beyond pluto. So including pluto as a planet through a systematic as oppose to arbitrary definition demands those other objects be classed as planets as well. There can be a very large number of these pluto like bodies in a broad band beyond pluto.
But personally I find it more interesting to describe the solar system as we currently know it - 8 planets plus a potentially very large number of still fairly hefty almost planets like Pluto, some of which are quite very exotic, then how we use to know it - 9 planets and some small rocks and snowballs.
They Oort to find more any day now.
They kuiperceive that far.
