That would have been an elegant solution, I think. On that basis, one could make a strong case that the presence of Trojan satellites speaks in favor of planetary status, because a body has to be about 25 times bigger than its satellites in order for the relationship to be stable, and being able to corral objects into pseudo-orbits about your L4/L5 points from such great distances is pretty telling. Similarly, Pluto's 3:2 harmony with Neptune could be seen as evidence of Neptune's dominance, and Cruithne's (or the Moon's) relationship with Earth would be more of the same. It might be hard to explain what "dominance" means in a single sentence written at a second-grade level, but a slightly deeper discussion of what dominance can mean would probably be wonderfully didactic, and even if it's got some level of intractable vagueness, at least it seems like an accurate description of the 8 planets.
Also, maybe you've seen this BBC discussion of the controversy (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5283956.stm) (from Slashdot)?
Also also, I dislike the decision that planets orbit the Sun. If you're going to define a planet to be those eight and nothing else, then why bother formulating a general definition, and if you create a general definition, then why not apply it to all star systems?
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Date: 2006-08-26 03:16 am (UTC)Also, maybe you've seen this BBC discussion of the controversy (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5283956.stm) (from Slashdot)?
Also also, I dislike the decision that planets orbit the Sun. If you're going to define a planet to be those eight and nothing else, then why bother formulating a general definition, and if you create a general definition, then why not apply it to all star systems?