Here is what I get from copying out of the page which you must have completely ignored if you looked at the link.
I never claimed that is was a formal scientific definition. You are attempting to move the goalposts. So post your definition of a* formal scientifc definition *before I respond.
And while you’re at it, why don’t you tell us how many planets you thought there were 6 years ago.
Other solar system aren’t really an issue. The current official definition for planets that was adopted in 2006 specifically only applies to our solar system. There is a separate official definition that applies to other solar systems.
A question for the more astronomically informed. Is it possible that there are other undiscovered bodies in our solar system that meet the current definition of a planet? Obviously it would have to be quite a ways out to be still undiscovered. Does out current knowledge of the way the solar system works allow for the possibility that there may be more planets out there? Or do we know that anything that gets discovered from this point on will not meet the criteria for planethood?
It’s possible. As Chronos says, the outer solar system has not been well surveyed, so large objects could easily escape detection. Over the next few years we can expect to get a better idea of what’s out there, what could possibly be there and the conditions under which the solar system formed. Automatic survey telescopes such as PAN-STARRS and the LSST are expected to discover many times the number of TNOs that are currently known. It’s not just a case of detecting them, determining their orbits puts limits on what else could be present.
Objects such as Pluto and Eris are thought to have formed much closer to the sun than their current orbits, where there was sufficient material in the proto-planetary disc for them to coalesce. They were scattered into the outer solar system by the outward migration of the planets. (This is the context in which the dwarf planet term makes sense, planets bully the dwarf planets). The largest of these objects could be bigger than Mercury. The cutoff point between regular and dwarf planet is not precisely defined, but a Mercury sized TNO would probably be considered a dwarf planet under the current definition, which would be consistent but somewhat unsatisfying. Something considerably bigger might be considered a planet.
Sedna’s highly eccentric orbit is something of a mystery, it doesn’t come close enough to the planets to have been scattered into that orbit by them. Another much larger object must have attracted it. This might be a planet or brown dwarf in the outer solar system, or it might be due to the pull from a star which had a close encounter with the solar system. Finding more objects in that region of space will help resolve this mystery. (Another explanation is that Sedna actually formed around another star, but was captured by the sun, but this is thought to be less likely).
Theories of star system formation predict that a large number of bodies are ejected from due to gravitational encounters, and that stars form in clusters. It’s possible the sun may have captured planets ejected from other star systems.
Well, there is this thing also called time, back then in the pluto-is-still-a-planet days of 2005, the discovery of Eris (as many call that dwarf planet in your link) was hailed as the tenth planet by those experts you point at; but, I think I have to agree with **Colibri **here, it was thanks to discoveries like Eris that told astronomers that there was a need now to properly define what a planet was and the experts you point at then dropped the idea that a tenth planet was discovered, it is now considered a dwarf planet just like Pluto.
Well, maybe they can in some johnny-come-lately science like nuclear physics or genetics. But astronomy, especially planetary astronomy, has a history spanning several thousand years. And that much longer tradition says that we adjust what is considered a planet as new theories and data come in.
As far as more planets out there, I would say the most likely place is about 50 AU out. The classic Kuiper Belt has a fairly sharp drop-off about there and one possibility is a largish planet orbiting at that point and clearing out most of the small objects. I don’t think this is very likely, but more likely than anywhere else another planet could be.
As mentioned, it was the discordance brought by the new objects discovered recently that told the astronomers how inadequate the previous definitions were. “The tenth planet” was never officially declared that BTW. NASA alone can not go over the rulings of the International Astronomical Union (IAU).
Pre Pluto’s demotion, planets where defined by tradition. Orbiting bodies were not added based on a set of predefined criteria, or removed by properly defining new criteria, but by gut feeling, which then affected tradition.
And that’s my limit for pointless semantics-discussions.
I strongly recommend Mike Brown’s memoir How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming, by the Caltech astronomer who discovered Eris and several other Kuiper Belt objects to get the whole discussion rolling (and he’s a damned entertaining writer, too). Brown tells the full story of the 2006 vote by the IAU about just what definitions to use, and how the definition has changed a number of times in the past. Brown adds that his own preference might be to categorize the objects that revolve around the Sun into 4 groups: the terrestrial planets (Mercury thru Mars), the asteroids, the outer planets (Jupiter thru Neptune), and the Kuiper Belt objects (Pluto on out).
Pluto’s status as a planet has been disputed since it’s discovery in 1930. It was originally thought to be a similar mass to the Earth, in accordance with the Planet X hypothesis (now disproven, the mass of Neptune had been overestimated by 0.5%). It was assumed to be a large, dark object, when it is actually a small, highly reflective one. Some astronomers did not accept this, saying it had more in common with an asteroid or comet. Estimates of it’s size were revised downwards throughout the 20th century. In 1978, the discovery of it’s moon Charon allowed it’s mass to be calculated for the first time. It was found to be 1/500th the mass of the Earth. It wasn’t until 1992 that another astronomers found another body orbiting beyond Neptune. Since then, several hundred have been detected, confirming what has long been suspected, that Pluto is just one of a large population of TNOs. The discovery of Eris, 27% more massive than Pluto, brought matters to a head. There is also Neptune’s moon Triton, which was captured early in the history of the solar system. It has a very similar composition to Pluto, but is about 60% more massive.
Those complaining about Pluto’s demotion are really missing the point. We haven’t lost anything, we’ve simply learned more about the solar system. We’ve gained Eris, Sedna, Haumea (ellipsoid in shape, twice as long in one axis than another due to it’s rapid rotation), Makemake, Orcus, Varuna, Quaoor…
The only reason I hate the demotion is that Pluto was the perfect name for the last planet. Is it at least the first or largest of the Kuiper Belt objects? Then it could be the lord of the dark planetoids.
OK, you caught me. I’ll admit I misused the term “tradition” the first time. Misused in the same way you did, which is why I did it. In retrospect, I should have put it in quotes, but that didn’t occur to me at the time.
The term you want there is “concensus”, not “tradition”.
As our observational abilities changed, so did the definition of “planet.” Future discoveries are likely to require additional revisions. Such is science.