1. That Jupiter shares its orbit with asteroids, and therefore, hasn't "cleared its neighborhood"?
2. That Neptune shares its orbit with countless Kuiper Belt Objects, and therefore, hasn't "cleared its neighborhood"?
3. That Mars shares its orbit with Trojan class asteroids, like Jupiter, and therefore, hasn't "cleared its neighborhood"?
4. That Earth shares its orbit with Near Earth Asteroids, and therefore, hasn't "cleared its neighborhood"?
Why am I telling you this?
Tomorrow, or, today if you live east of the US, is the one-year anniversary of Pluto's redefinition as a "dwarf planet". By the IAU's shoddy definition:
A "dwarf planet" is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape [2], (c) has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit, and (d) is not a satellite.
Neptune, Mars, Earth, and even Jupiter, the largest of all the planets, are now equal with Pluto as being "dwarf planets", leaving Venus, Saturn, Uranus, and Mercury - the smallest official planet - as real planets.
I've heard a lot of crazy things in my short time on this planet - We faked the moon landings, Mercury may be the core of an ancient gas giant, that there may be a brown dwarf beyond the Oort Cloud - but Jupiter being a dwarf planet and Mercury a real one has to top it.
So I suppose what I'm asking is: Do you think Pluto is a planet? Do you agree with the IAU's definition of a planet? Why or why not?
