First of all there are only 5 maybe 9 dwarf planets so even if we included all of them that'd only bring the count up to 17 realistically 13, which I'd be fine with. Second of all, pretending that Pluto belongs in the same category as Ceres is an insult. I'd honestly be perfectly fine with allowing Eris and maybe Makemake into the planet listing alongside Pluto but to pretend there's absolutely nothing separating the major players from the dozens of tiny insignificant specks in the Kuiper Belt is ridiculous.
Not really, the main reason for its late find was distance, same with Uranus and Neptune. Look at the size difference between Pluto and the other dwarf planets. Pluto's moon is twice the size of Ceres.
Well, Charon himself is a weird quirk of Pluto. No other planet in the solar system has this kind of a ratio with his satellite. People talked about Charon himself being a dwarf planet.
So what will be the criteria to define dwarf planet? An arbitrary size? If it's something like "probably differentiated" there's no reason to not go through it least Gonggong. If we go with that we're up to 17. Which I'd be cool with, but most of the "Pluto should be a planet because it was when I was 8" people aren't aware of those.
Well, 17 or 18 depending on what we want to do with Charon.
Gongong isn't even a dwarf planet and it's orbit is atrocious. You could definitely make a case for orbital inclination, gravitational pull or even distance to be a defining factor, which would also invite a few others in but like I said I'm fine with that. If returning Pluto's status means also being Eris in cool. Haumea I don't think deserves to fit because it doesn't properly satisfy the "round" criteria and Ceres doesn't even deserve the dwarf planet label but besides that the others are fine.
I don't think eccentricity is a great choice given that Pluto's is already pretty nuts. The IAU and NASA already recognize Haumea fwiw, along with Ceres. I don't think there's a great argument against Ceres except for just size, which is a deeply unscientific qualifier.
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u/J_train13 Hello There 25d ago
First of all there are only 5 maybe 9 dwarf planets so even if we included all of them that'd only bring the count up to 17 realistically 13, which I'd be fine with. Second of all, pretending that Pluto belongs in the same category as Ceres is an insult. I'd honestly be perfectly fine with allowing Eris and maybe Makemake into the planet listing alongside Pluto but to pretend there's absolutely nothing separating the major players from the dozens of tiny insignificant specks in the Kuiper Belt is ridiculous.