Originally published at: 18th anniversary of downgrading Pluto to a "dwarf planet" - Boing Boing
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Via Jennifer Sandlin…
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I know that there are a lot of people, including one or two on this BBS, who strongly defend that decision and will say that it was based on science. And ok, whatever. I have no personal stake in that. But I also think it’s relevant to point out that this vote happened on the last day of the IAU conference (when many attendees had already gone home) and the vote tally was 237 votes in favor of the resolution, 157 against. The total IAU membership at the time was 9000 voting members, so that means that less than 3% of IAU members actively voted for this definition.
There were many contentious last-minute amendments and negotiations before the final draft was settled on. So this definition came about through a very human process, and, at least at the time, was far from a consensus among IAU members.
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That’s interesting. Astronomy I know nothing about but human politicking and organisational dysfunction and hijacking? Those are things I have ordinary human experience of.
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I would have preferred renamed the planets as “True planets”. And including both true planets and dwarf planets (or possibly minor planets) in the category of planets. This would have made the list of planets students would need to memorize longer and ever changing. Which is a good representation of the ever changing details in science.
faced with the unenviable task of controlling the nomenclature of a dozen new planets (all of which would be named after religious deities), the IAU wisely decided to limit planets to eight. Let the minor planet center deal with that shit.
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Pluto was considered “the ninth planet” between 1930 and 2006
Jupiter was considered the ninth planet between 1807 and 1845
Shit happens, things change
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They Might be Giants sound like they could be a They Used to be Planets cover band.
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And yet people still say “downgraded” or “demoted”, not “reclassified”, because astronomy is all about status and not trying to represent the universe as best we can. 
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Another “Pluto is/isn’t a planet” topic? Must be a slow news/engagement day!
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I think this subject needs to be added to the list of things on the BBS that start arguments, because every time something about Pluto’s status as a dwarf planet is posted, the whole issue gets relitigated here.
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The one thing I genuinely dislike about the current system is that nobody has actually defined how round something needs to be to count as a dwarf planet, so Hygiea is stuck as a “possible dwarf planet” even though we actually have a very good idea of its shape.
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Paging @anon87143080!
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The Λ discriminant is really useful, we could even use it to distinguish “real moons” from, you know, space junk orbiting Jupiter
but then somebody would cry about Helike and Orthosie not being moons anymore and say it didn’t count because they didn’t vote on it right
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Obligatory:
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Well you have to be a little careful there on shape discrimation. Saturn is 10% wider than its polar diameter, so it is more squashed than Hygiea is.
