[Wids]

Maybe it is, Pleiade, and maybe it isn't. It depends on what a dwarf planet is actually considered to be. But considering that we have asteroids which have greater mass and stronger gravitational pull than Pluto has, maybe Pluto is just a very lonely asteroid...except that it has its own moon, so it can't be all that lonely. And maybe we have dwarf planets in our Asteroid Belt. I'm looking at you, Ceres! :P

While you're thinking that over, here's a pretty picture. See if you can find Pluto the midget planet! :D

[Purulent Carcass]

The entire asteroid belt is believed to never have been allowed to form into a planet, due to Jupiters gravitational effect on the chunks, not allowing them to fuse together as they impact each other. Supposedly the impacts are too violent and because of this, the region lost most of its mass in the early history of our solar system, with the 99.9% of majority getting jettisoned out.

Kuiper and theoretical Oort cloud chunks seem to also be remnants and part of that proto solar system cloud. Several of the larger planet's moons are believed to be from the Kuiper. I think what actually makes Pluto rather unique is that fact it has Charon as a satellite. Eris is bigger than Pluto and they decided that instead of adding a growing number of planets to the roster, they would redefine what it means to be a planet. It pretty much boils down to it needing to be located between the sun and Kuiper belt. Clearing the orbit of planetary neighbors is one of the requirements needed to be classified as a planet, yet Earth, Mars, Jupiter and I think Neptune all have asteroids in their orbits. So there are discrepancies in that whole mess.

[Pluto]

Yes, the IAU ruling on the whole thing was flawed. It seemed everyone was aghast that with the discovery of Eris and its diameter larger than Pluto the solar system would have to go from nine planets to ten. I saw no problem with that. Incredibly, the discoverer of Eris Mike Brown seemed to have a big issue with it and was fine with the reclassification; in effect talking himself out of being remembered as the discoverer of the tenth planet of the solar system.

One of the biggest flaws in the classification of being a planet is having cleared your orbit of 'debris'. Well, no planet has accomplished that as all are pelted with varying degrees of meteors every minute. If you go larger in scale than just mere meteors, then the larger planets would be in danger of being demoted as they have several large asteroids(captured comets maybe?) in their own lagrange points at L4 and L5 that will probably be there following or preceding the planet for all eternity.

I think a better ruling than what the IAU came up with would have been some hard numbers, like setting the diameter of the body at 1000km. Anything greater than that and not undergoing some kind of fusion process(a star) would be considered a planet. Anything under that diameter would be considered an asteroid. Using those guidelines, Ceres would have remained an asteroid and Eris would have become planet #10. Kids would have been filled with wonder at a growing solar system; while old timers could reminisce about how when they were young there was only nine planets.

And Wids, there are no asteroids that have a greater mass than Pluto. Even Ceres before it got upgraded to a dwarf planet still fell short. Eris is not an asteroid as it's a Kuiper Belt object. Granted, the Kuiper Belt has a lot in common with the asteroid belt as it's a debris field at the edge of our solar system but still.

[Wids]

Okay, so I had some faulty recollection there. I could have sworn that Ceres was somewhere around Pluto's size. To Google!

(And it does seem like a scumbag judgement, coming up with the whole "dwarf planet" classification. It's not like astronomers have always recognized nine planets in our solar system; the ancient Romans didn't know that the planets beyond Saturn even existed (unless my recollection's being faulty again). So we started off with six recognized planets in our solar system, then seven, then eight, then nine...so exactly how and why would adding a tenth or eleventh planet have been such a horrible thing?)

And I look forward to your "Ceres is still an asteroid" signature, P. :P

[TheShadowEntity]

Since you guys are on Kuiper belt objects...

The Kuiper belt is like the asteroid belt because it IS and asteroid belt. the primary difference being that it has a greater number of comets due to being so far away. Remember that the asteroid belt likely had large numbers of comets as well in the beginning however due to the proximity to the host star they would have burned off long ago.

I agree with the notion that totally clearing its orbital path is somewhat unrealistic as no planet has in truth ever accomplished this despite the unusual stability of the Sol system. I also agree that it would have been more useful to set a hard limit and say Mass must be greater than X to be a planet if mass is less than X object is an asteroid. This being said i would like to jump into history here and mention that the idea of what is a planet itself has changed over the centuries...

In the original Greek definition planet included ANY non-comet that orbited the sun and did not orbit a secondary body. This was changed later to include only the largest of these objects as by the original definition there could literally be MILLIONS of planets as it would have to include every asteroid within an approximately 200AU radius (or out past the termination shock where the object is considered to be outside of the solar system).

This new classification is simply an attempt to do the same as the last reclassification, weed out all but the major bodies of the system. The new definition however is flawed because as stated many times it lacks hard numbers. The better method would be to toss the "Dwarf planet" category all together due to it being so ill defined, and set a hard limit on a major body. anything above that is a planet anything below is an asteroid.

This being said i am of the opinion that Pluto is not a planet but instead a super-massive asteroid. here are my reasons.

Pluto is still far smaller than any major planet, this alone should be something but to further support this i would like to point to its orbit. Pluto follows a radically differing orbital plane than all other planets in the system. not only is the orbit eccentric, passing through the orbits of other planets, but also unlike all major planets its orbital plane itself is tilted to an extreme angle. Some may point to pluto's moon as conformation of planetary status however even some of the very small asteroids have been found to have tiny, car sized, moons.

While not all may agree with this take. I feel it justifies my position on this topic.

[Wids]

So...how 'bout that pic? Big, isn't it?

And is anyone here down with Pacific Islander culture and mythology? Makemake! Is it pronounced "MAKE-make," "MAH-kay MAH-kay" or something else? And why did the astronomers get all punny over discovering it around Easter and switch to Easter Island's pantheon when we haven't even come close to running out of bastardized Greek Roman gods yet?

(By the way, Carcass, I notice a distinct lack of muscular elves in your signature. Explain. o_O )

[Animayhem]

[Wids]

That is totally an asteroid. :D

[Pluto]

I am totally handing out server bans.... ;)

[Wids]

You can start by banning Pluto. It started this whole mess. :P