A planet by any other name....

Those of you who know me are expecting me to comment on the Pluto planet "demotion" fiasco. I actually commented on this whole issue of planethood way back in last September (check out the archives!).

I liked the original idea of calling a planet anything massive enough to make itself round and reinstating Ceres into the planet pantheon. However, I'm a minority of one when I say I think JUPITER, SATURN, URANUS, and NEPTUNE should be stripped of their planetary status. They're gas giants. If you can't land on it it's not a planet in my book.

I also didn't really like the idea that the object has to be dominant in it's region (which is what demoted Pluto and quashed Ceres' chances again) or the fact that it has to be orbiting a star (which screws up the status of exoplanets and massive objects like Titan and Earth's moon Luna).

I DO like the fact that astronomers are trying to sub-catagorized the idea of planets. Personally, I think they should use and expand on the Star Trek classifications, since a majority of them are Trekkies anyway, but thats just me.

So, here are what I consider to be the 'planets' of the Sol system:
Earth / Luna
Venus
Mars
Mercury
'Xena' 2003 UB₃₁₃
Pluto / * Charon
'Santa' 2003 EL₆₁
90377 Sedna
50000 Quaoar
1 Ceres

Planets of the Jupiter (Jovian) system:
* Ganymede
* Callisto
* Io
* Europa

Planets of the Saturn (Saturnian?) system:
* Titan
* Rhea
* Iapetus
* Dione

Planets of the Uranus styem:
* Titania
* Oberon
* Ariel
* Umbriel

Planet of the Neptune system:
* Triton


There we go. The Solar system has 8 planets plus 2 double-planets, and 4 sub-systems with four planets each (except Neptune, it only has one) giving us a grand total of 25 at the moment.

Sounds way more complex and terribly unlikely at the moment, but it gives the solar system a grand scope of uncharted mystery, don't it?



Lurker
(Must take over space program)