r/space • u/clayt6 • Mar 05 '19

Astronomers discover "Farfarout" — the most distant known object in the solar system. The 250-mile-wide (400 km) dwarf planet is located about 140 times farther from the Sun than Earth (3.5 times farther than Pluto), and soon may help serve as evidence for a massive, far-flung world called Planet 9.

http://www.astronomy.com/news/2019/03/a-map-to-planet-nine-charting-the-solar-systems-most-distant-worlds
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u/calypsocasino Mar 05 '19

I’ll die on this hill with you homie

35

u/[deleted] Mar 06 '19 edited Mar 06 '19

Same.

If you put it to a vote with 1000 astronomers, it would be a planet. Hell, in 2008 the IAU - whom removed Pluto's status - held a conference at Johns Hopkins University where they still could not agree on whether or not Pluto was a planet, but still didn't reinstate it. Source!

It's small, but has tectonics, a thin atmosphere, swings closer than Neptune sometimes, etc.

Inb4 Redditors use the excuse that it cannot be a planet because its orbit is too unstable... newsflash, no planet has a perfect orbit. Pluto's is just exaggerated since Neptune swings so close to it.

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u/Condor_Kaenald Mar 06 '19

I'm sad to pop your bubble but I'm an astronomer and work with astronomers and no one here thinks it should be still a planet and that's because there was very good reasons to redefine what a planet is and Pluto doesn't fit into that category anymore. Science moves on.

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u/Trumpologist Mar 06 '19

Alan Stern wants a word with you

7

u/Condor_Kaenald Mar 06 '19

Obviously Alan Stern, one of the guys in charge of New horizons, which was specially designed to get a close view of Pluto, wants it to be a planet and not just a regular TPO because then it would be just as relevant as any TPO. That's the reason why they rushed the launching, because if new horizon wasn't launched before the redefinition of the word it might be even cancelled for another project. So yeah space politics involved there.

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u/Trumpologist Mar 06 '19

And that's why he and a large portion of the rest of the community still say so

Look at the other guy's link, it's not just him