939
Sad Ganymede noises
(mander.xyz)
Size doesn't matter
Correct, it's called planet when it orbits arround the Sun AND has cleaned it's orbit from asteroids, not the case of Pluto, whose orbit is still full of other objects, some even bigger than Pluto itself.
If it orbits an Planet instead of the Sun, it's a Moon, even if it is bigger than some other planets.
"All right, Ganymede. You can be a planet, but first you have to clean up your orbit. Start with Jupiter."
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Jupiter has a permanent cloud of asteroids that follow it and neptune crosses the orbit of pluto so neither of those have cleared their orbits so of course they made exceptions so that their contrived definition fits.
Do you mean the asteroids at the Lagrangian points? Every single planet has asteroids there because math/physics dictates those points to be stable. Jupiter has the most at its points because it's the largest planet.
Same with Neptune cleaning its orbit: It has collided with every single thing in its orbit EXCEPT those that synced their orbits to Neptune. An object that is gravitationally dominated by a single planet should not be a planet under any definition.
Sources because I had to read into your claims and I'm no astrophysicist:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrange_point
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resonant_trans-Neptunian_object
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Jupiter's Trojan asteroids sit at Lagrange points. Material found there is not counted in the 'clearing the orbit' criteria. They are in stable orbits caused by the mass of the planet in question, not in lieu of a massive enough body.
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Pluto is a dwarf planet, which is still a planet.
Also, they absolutely should have just made an exception for Pluto so science teachers everywhere could have used that as a fun teaching point.
Considering it's in a double tidally locked orbit with its own moon Charon and the point that both rotate around is outside Pluto's volume I would argue that the Pluto/Charon system is actually a dwarf-binary-planet.
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Also they shouldn't have called the category of "things that aren't planets despite being in some ways planet-like" "dwarf planet," they should have called them "planetoids." Star Trek had been referring to small planet-like objects as planetoids for decades, so the work in the popular consciousness had already been done. Dwarf planet not being a planet makes it sound like they're saying dwarf people don't count as people, and I don't care for that at all.
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when it orbits arround the Sun AND has cleaned it’s orbit from asteroid
Jupiter, largest of all dwarf planets, shares its orbit with some i don't know million asteroids.
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Unless you are Pluto.
Wasn't it more bc it doesn't clear it's surroundings?
And it has an orbit at a different angle than the 8 Planets and at it’s narrowest the ellipse of Plutos orbit is actually closer to the Sun than ~~Uranus~~ Neptune.
Edit: That moment when you‘re so done, you fuck up the order of our planets…
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That's what I tell my wife but she won't listen
Come on guys, laugh
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Weird how many people seem to think it’s like a competition or something. It’s a descriptive label.
The whole Pluto thing taught us a lot about the psychology of letting go of something taught at a young age. People getting proper frothing at how they shoulda just let Pluto keep it, just to save themselves the extremely minor cognitive dissonance.
When people get upset about pluto, I'll just tell them if pluto is planet, so is Ceres. Which then results in mindless staring because they never even heard about Ceres...
And Cedna. And Eris. And Makemake. And Haumea. And...
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Have you seen the lengths people go to in order to not have to change their world view even a smidge? To not have to correct themselves about anything at all? I'll give you a hint, literally every right wing party in the world doing well is because weak people can't change a damn thing about themselves.
"World view" is very fitting here.
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I really doubt more than .001% actually care if it's called a planet or not, it's just a meme to pretend that you care. Like pineapple on pizza.
No one actually cares if you put pineapple on pizza. No one actually cares about Pluto being a planet. But there are many people who see themselves as some sort of white knight defenders of the truth against haters that don't actually even exist.
I care if you put pineapple on pizza. Please put it on yours. Please. That means less on mine. Not that i dislike it, i just lack the parts to digest it properly.
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People fighting for Pluto that it should be a planet instead of a dwarf planet
Ceres: 🥺
Context: Ceres is now considered a dwarf planet, and used to be considered just an asteroid, but when it was first discovered it was considered a planet. That was in 1801. There is no objective criteria for what a planet is and isn't. Like a lot of things in nature, things just exist, and as humans we categorize them. Ceres is round like a planet like Pluto. I'm not saying it should be considered a planet, I think dwarf planet fits them both nicely. As late as the 1950s Ceres was still sometimes considered a planet by some people.
I have a sort spot for it. I love it.
Edit: Because two people have misunderstood me now I'm going to say it more explicitly. I'm fully aware there is a scientific definition for dwarf planets. I'm not saying there isn't. I'm just saying compared to something else like prime numbers there isn't an obviously correct way to categorize them and the definition has changed over time. By stating the current definition of planets and/or dwarf planets you're missing my point. Those definitions change. See here for the history.
I'm fighting for jupiter to also be a dwarf planet because it has not cleared its orbit of a few million asteroids.
You do have a point
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well guess which Moon is also pretty close in size to Mercury
What is yer mum’s bare arse, Trebek!
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Gas giants aren't planets: they're just clouds, man.
Git Gud Ganymede, break out of Jupiter’s orbit
Well ... what planet does Mercury orbit? Oh ... yea, then its not a moon.
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New York City born and raised.
I distinctly remember a third grade class when the teacher told us that the population nation of Sweden was smaller than the population of New York City.
Nobody does indignation like a 9 year old.
If you’re only counting New York City proper this is true, but the New York City metro area vastly out populates the entire nation of Sweden. (20M vs 10M)
iirc it was NYC 8 mllion and Sweden 7.5 million. No idea what her source was.
Mercury used to be bigger than it currently is. The only thing that's survived the wrath of The Sun is its core.
Mercury is hard core.
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Don't take Mercury for granted.
This is how we lost Pluto to the "well ackchually" gang.
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this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2026
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