Science and indecision

I read today that scientists still don’t have a definition for ‘planet’ and will be voting on whether to adopt one soon, at a convention no less. It seems that this new definition possibility – that a planet is round and bound by gravity, basically – would mean that several other already-identified celestial bodies would instantly become planets – rounding us out to an even dozen but with potential for 57 total and a whole lot of controversy. Or something like that. Good grief.

So we'd have Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Charon (Charon is Pluto's same-sized moon but would now be classified as a planet, only both Pluto and Charon would actually be 'Plutons' to distinguish them from the other planets... er... ) and, finally, 2003 UB313. I kid you not. Sort of takes the romance out of the skies, doesn't it?

I guess all this came about because of the discovery of Pluto and the fact that it was declared to be a planet right away. Evidently not a lot of consideration went into that one. Frankly, Pluto has been around long enough that you’d think any controversy about its status would have been resolved by now. Since the names of the planets are among the few things I’ve ever managed to memorize and remember from elementary school (along with the beginning of "Four score and seven years ago" and the charming little ditty*, “What a wonderful bird the frog are…”) it seems like such a betrayal. Why aren't things we 'know' still the things we know? Worse, certainly, than changing the name of Bombay to Mumbai, for example. But that isn't really my point. I'm wondering, actually, about the 'indecision' of it all.

Astronomy is one of the oldest sciences. Astronomers have been around - with their own scientific instruments and everything - for centuries. You’d think they’d have their act together better than that at this point. Sort of gives one pause for thought. If we still can't decide what a planet is… well, I don't know what. Can't decide. Good grief.


* (In case you were wondering)

What a wonderful bird the frog are.
When he stand, he sit. Almost.

When he hop, he fly. Almost.

He ain't got no sense hardly
He ain't got no tail hardly either

When he sit, he sit on what he ain't got.

Almost.

-- Anonymous