katvonvixen
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On October 21, 2003, the Hubble Telescope captured distant images of a tiny speck of light.
In the distant solar system, the discovery team named the object Xena, after the television warrior princess.
The discovery caused discord within the astronomical community.
Eris was bigger than Pluto, but there was reluctance to declare a tenth planet in the solar system.
Instead, a compromise was made to demote Pluto to a "dwarf planet", along with two others.
Source: https://www.9news.com.au/world/today-in-history-october-21-what-happened-on-this-day-in-pictures/a8260a59-5e0e-4df2-b595-7a55cda76408
Artist depiction of Dwarf planet Pluto (2015).
The discovery of the (dwarf) planet Eris in 2005 lead to the reclassification of smaller trans- Neptunian objects as dwarf planets.
BCRail
“Pluto isn’t real. Space dosent exist” - every flat earther ever.
worm61
You heard about Pluto? That’s messed up, right?
spontaneous9
I still think, hell, as long as they were naming planets after Disney characters, they should've picked Goofy.
allcattywampus
We don't have a good image of Eris; that's Charon, Pluto's moon. The "artist's depiction" below it is in fact a photo, or a collage of photographs, from the New Horizons probe, albeit enhanced and altered somewhat.
SinStar87
Interesting https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/plutos-big-moon-charon-reveals-a-colorful-and-violent-history/ For reference. IDK enough about art to decide if composite and 'touched up' images are 'artist's depiction' or not. Here's the true color image of Pluto from New Horizons https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/Pluto_in_True_Color_-_High-Res.png
theomni
Gonna be honest, I never really thought Pluto should have been a planet. Take any astronomy textbook from the 90s and find some illustration of the planets and their orbits. I always got the feeling that one of them didn't belong. It definitely looked like an outlier.
247Lurker
More like re-classification. Not lesser, just different :)
whaticansee
A dwarf planet is still a planet :)
Futchm
So the class of body doesn't include the word 'planet' right?
combatkillaz
Awkward? Indeed…
GorillaPowers
Volimar
It is named after the goddess of discord after all.
Fendeezy
Who was also in Xena.
jollyjack
Eris led to the demotion of Pluto? F**k you, Eris.
5ynic
"The discovery caused discord" - I see what you did there. Have an upvote.
Taalii
VIVA LA PLUTO
C141Clay
whatsisname
Good lord the New Horizon's flyby of Pluto was in 2015? Feels like it was just few years ago, not 9.
Kojak1970
If you're ever in Flagstaff AZ, visit the Lowell Observatory where Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto in 1930. In 2006, the IAU voted (you don't VOTE in science) to declassify Pluto as a planet after the planetary astronomers had left the conference. Pluto is still a planet to me.... :P
NicolasKevinMac
"Lowell" being Percival Lowell, who figured out there must be another planet out there somewhere, because he could see how its gravity impacted the rest of the solar system. But despite searching for it for like twenty years, he never actually found it; nearly twenty more years passed before Tombaugh was able to find it.
my1rstlaptopwas34inchscreenup
i read demolition and i was like WHAAAATTTT! haha good time
Futchm
Kinda fitting that the goddess of discord and strife caused this
manulofdoom
Guess why TF they named it that...
qtRaven
So we should get a new arc showing the origin of Sailor Trans-Neptunian Object fairly soon?
skipweasel
I must find my glasses - I read that as demolition and thought "Fuck - what did I miss?"
ByThePowerOfSCIENCE
Shiva got fed up with the controversy at the IAU
SchalchenR9
Planet of our hearts🥺
Vergenbuurg
They *thought* Eris was bigger than Pluto. New Horizons actually revealed Pluto to be slightly larger than the most recent estimates prior. We still don't know exactly how large Eris is, but the general consensus nowadays is fairly certain that it is smaller than Pluto. I personally think Pluto should have been the standard-bearer for the minimum size of a "planet", with everything smaller carrying the dwarf planet classification.
SinStar87
why pluto and not mercury which seems to fit the revised definition.
Jarjarthejedi
Smaller by volume, larger by mass. Eris is believed to be 2% smaller by volume and 27% larger by mass than Pluto. And the entire point of the vote was to avoid arbitrary lines like "anything smaller than X is a dwarf planet" as those cause a mess of problems when new planets whose size straddles the line are found. The new definition isn't perfect, but it's nowhere near as arbitrary as "Pluto's diameter is the magical dividing line".
Vergenbuurg
But I *want* to be arbitrary! :P
EatPieLander
What about elf planets?
AnonKneeMoose
Elf planets are stars, Man planets are moons & we’re on the hobbit one. Any other questions?
aThingWithTheStufAndTheJunk
They're very thirsty, I'm told.
SpamYarBlockers
What about side by side with friend planets?
CatEyebrows
Well ok but what about the hobbit planets?
ItHappenedInThe20thCentury
we're on the one, dude
CatEyebrows
TheLeanWolf
They crossed the milky way and left our solar system forever. Read your Tolkien!
nobodyspecial995
Maybe stop calling it a demotion and call it a reclassification? We learned more about both Pluto AND the rest of the solar system, and reclassified it.
C141Clay
ThingsThatDontJustifyGenocide
Pluto is a planet, but some weenies didn't like that because it would mean having to classify a lot of stuff in the outer orbit as planets as well.
DrSparken
It would mean literally thousands of objects being planets and that number constantly increasing for decades to come. It's either pluto's not a planet or the rest are major planets, either way pluto loses its status in the group. It's still a subcategory of planetoid, planet just now means something useful for describing solar system structure.
ThingsThatDontJustifyGenocide
Damn, guess we got a lot of planets in this neighborhood
idrinkcheapbeer
I guess it's like the premier league. If you can't cut it, you get "reclassified"
djj25
So Pluto was sold out
nobodyspecial995
Somebody ratted him out, told the universe how small he really was.
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Jarjarthejedi
That's nonsense. "It was changed on a vote" no, the new proposed definition of planets (which replaced basically nothing, we didn't /have/ a definition of planet before it) was put to a vote. Pluto's status was affected by that vote, but claiming it was a vote about Pluto is pure BS. It was a simple "here's a proposal for a definition for this thing we have no definition for, yay or nay?". That's been a part of science forever. Stop spreading this bs.
AtmaDarkwolf
ty for typing it out so I didn't have to. It annoys me people so damn butthurt about this. Every time u hear people bitch about Pluto's new classification(or rather where it fits into that classification) it is like they were personally attacked and targeted by science itself.
BCRail
The science is out to get us!!!
SinStar87
how are scientific classifications normally done?
SoupCanMan
The Emperor of science declares it, obviously. Duh.
SinStar87
Oh right, I forgot, I hope my lapse is forgiven. Long live the Emperor!
ByThePowerOfSCIENCE
Sorting Telescope - we no longer use it for Zodiac houses
SinStar87
hehe you all are funny, tho was legitimately asking, cause I thought the standard for things in science like definitions and stuff were decided by consensus or 'vote'.
ByThePowerOfSCIENCE
ok, seriously though - IAU didn't decide so much on Pluto as on what's actually a "planet" as opposed to other objects, because so many had been discovered since the 90s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto#IAU_classification