Let's see Pluto has three moons and an atmosphere -- this system seems a great deal more planet-like than Mercury. This orbit dequalification bit is silly.
Looks like you better find another line of work, Another Brother, your profession might be taken over by nerds...
Widespread planetary discrimination has led to the unjust disenfranchisement of one of the most underprivileged planets in our galaxy. We need the ACLU to take a stand and fight for affirmative action and against planetary segregation laws.
Which highlights how arbitrary the planet distinction is. However, I still think Pluto has a lot going against it. Besides its extra eliptical orbit, its orbit also operates on a different plane than the rest of the planets. It doesnt orbit on the same equator as the rest of the planets. This type of orbit is more consistent with asteroids, comets, etc.. than with the 8 other planets. Also, the moon issue isn't clear yet. Mars's moons are almost certainly just asteroids that just got caught in Mars's orbit. It's almost certain that is the case for two of Pluto's moons and potentially could be the case for Charon as well. As for atmosphere, all planets have it in varying amounts. And that's a poor criterion considering the moon Titan has a thicker atmosphere than ours.
No Sh*$. The things we spend money on. This...steroids in baseball, prisons, etc. Can they just send some of those funds to these poor schools in my area?
How many of my fellow clutchfans members have ever stopped and really pondered the fact there IS NO END to our Universe. I mean REALLY think about it. Guarenteed you'll have a headache in like a minute or so.
The other planets follow pretty much the same plane around the ecliptic (earth's plane of orbit). The biggest oddball to this path is Pluto at a 17 degree inclination to the ecliptic and an even goofier oblong orbit. Pluto's classification as a planet was a big flub to begin with and, to put it mildly, a scam that it was never corrected. One of the reasons Pluto was ever classified a planet was it was originally considered to be bigger than Mercury - and if Mercury is a planet, then so must Pluto, right? Wrong. This corrects that error.
Yes, but the new definition doesn't address these orbit anomalies. It doesn't address the intersection with Neptune's orbit either. The "must have cleared out its orbit" criterion seems to have been introduced merely to exclude Pluto and Xena, which orbit in the Kuiper Belt, and Ceres, which orbits in the asteroid belt. As I said, slightly arbitrary and far too vague. But it's a start
