Plutoids? ~ 13 June 2007

If asteroid means “star-like,” then Plutoid means “Pluto-like?”

Yesterday, the International Astronomical Union (IAU), meeting in Oslo, Norway, blindsided the astronomical community (not to mention astrologers) with a new definition for small, distant solar system bodies. Evidently, the astronomers do not know that Mercury retrograde, especially in Gemini, is hardly the time from promulgating new detail-ridden definitions and pontificating about their exclusive authority to define astronomical entities, the result of God’s Creation. Undaunted, the collection of astronomers issued a new definition for potential dwarf planets.

The wisdom of their ways eludes me. If there are new planets, there are more astronomy books to write and more money to make from prodigious royalties (kidding about the royalty part). The new definition allows existing texts to get away with the insertion of a qualifying preface and a few amended paragraphs here and there. What fun is that? Where’s the creative inspiration of Neptune? These are, after all, Trans-Neptunian bodies being discussed.

Anyway, the new definition reads “Plutoids is a celestial body in orbit around the Sun at a semimajor axis greater than that of Neptune that have sufficient mass for their self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that they assume a hydrostatic equilibrium (near-spherical) shape, and that have not cleared the neighbourhood around their orbit. Satellites of plutoids are not plutoids themselves, even if they are massive enough that their shape is dictated by self-gravity. The two known and named plutoids are Pluto and Eris. It is expected that more plutoids will be named as science progresses and new discoveries are made.” If you’d like to read the entire IAU release free of news organization spin: http://www.iau.org/public_press/news/release/iau0804/

Bear in mind, this qualifying definition does not undo the definition of dwarf planets as set forth last year. That definition, according to the astronomers, stands. Though they qualify Ceres as the only actual dwarf planet, seeking to slip the distant dwarf planets into a Kuiper Belt sock drawer where evidently they hope the bodies will be lost and ignored by astrologers forever.

As anyone enduring a Pluto or Eris transit knows, this definition fails to diminish the import of the dwarf planets. Some say that this proclamation “honors” Pluto, giving him admiralty over what shall likely become a fleet of Plutoids. For those of you who have not read, Does Size Matter? posted on my website, this treatise verifies that the density and gravity and relationships of density and gravity to other physical factors for the dwarf planets far exceed the potency of the terrestrial planets, gaseous giants and classical planets (just to ensure every body gets covered). While astronomers seek to minimize planetary effects, they simply can’t; physical evidence reveals the futility of their efforts.

A few other cards might be up the astronomers’ sleeves. It is possible that the body 136472 (2005 FY9) might receive a name during this meeting. It’s due and they could do it. As well, if they resolved the controversy over who discovered 136108 (2003 EL61), that body could also receive a name. Mike Brown and his co-discovery gang did submit a name for the latter body that is of Hawaiian mythology. They got Eris right, that’s for sure.

But the naming protocol also received a snag. The IAU press release now states that any solar system body maintaining a semi-major axis (radius the long way cross the orbital ellipse) greater than that of Neptune and an absolute magnitude brighter than H = +1, shall be deemed a plutoid and worthy of a name. The use of absolute magnitude reads like a trick to me. From absolute magnitude (brightness) and albedo (reflectivity) astronomers can assess a body’s diameter. Indirectly, they repeated the “how big around it is, size matters” agenda. Clever, but until astronomers evaluate planets by diameter, mass, gravity and density, at minimum, I accuse them of exclusionary physical science bias. We all know how Eris, center of this highly magnetic cluster flux, despises exclusion!

Finally, the astronomers have declared 2009 “The Year of Astronomy.” Oh yeah? They think they own the sky, huh? Let’s show them. Let’s declare 2009 and 2012, “Years of Astrology!”