Scientists say Pluto and the Moon should be classified as planets, amid concerns that the current definition of a planet is “rooted in folklore and astrology”.

Experts have studied how the definition of a planet changed from the time of Galileo in the 17th century until the conclusion of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in 2006 to create a new definition, i.e. Pluto was not classified as a planet. .

According to the IAU’s controversial definition, a planet must “clear” its orbit – in other words, it must have the largest force of gravity in its orbit.

Neptune’s gravity affects its neighbor Pluto, and as Pluto shares its orbit with gases and frozen objects in the Khyber belt, it means that Pluto has lost its place on Earth’s planet.

The authors of this new study, however, argue that the current definition of the IAU was hastened “before solving important problems” and should now be abolished.

They argue that the best definition of what a planet should look like is whether it functions geographically, although they agree that there should also be moons and asteroids within this definition. Several hundred objects in our solar system may be classified as planets – an argument for maintaining the IAU classification.

Under this newly proposed classification all the moons in our solar system should be defined as planets. But researchers argue that the idea that the moons are not planets came from “nineteenth-century astrology and telepathy”.

“For the term planet, most astronomers and I consider icy circles to be planets,” said Charlene E. Tedelich, a geologist and researcher at the Jones Hopkins University Laboratory of Applied Physics. There is enough mass to achieve hydrostatic equilibrium in any world. As a geologist, it would be more useful to separate the planets by their inherent properties rather than by their orbital dynamics. “

When the International Astronomical Union decided in 2006 that Tedelis was 10 years old, he first learned about the planets.

He said, “I have always been troubled by the controversy surrounding the easy-to-memorize schoolgirl model of the eight-planet solar system. Imagine how perspective they would have if they had a full understanding of diversity. The universe and our place in it? We are not one of eight planets, we are over 200. One of more than one planet.

In a five-year review of the last 400 years of literature entitled Planets in Icarus Magazine, researchers have defined Galileo’s geophysical definition of a planet – the geographically functioning body of a planet in space – as “eroded”.

This definition of geophysics has been used in scientific literature since the time it was proposed by Galileo in the seventeenth century, based on his observations of the mountains on the moon, until the early twentieth century.

Philip Medzer, a planetary scientist and research professor at the University of Central Florida, said: “When Galileo suggested that the planets revolve around the sun, he placed him under house arrest for the rest of his life. He accepted his position, and he was partially released and imprisoned. Was released from. Know.

According to the study, from 1910 to 1950, things began to change when there was a clear decline in the number of scientific articles written on planetary science.

“Through bipliometrics we have shown that there was a time when astronomers did not pay much attention to the planets.

Analysts have information such as almanacs – yearbooks, weather forecasts that rely on astronomical factors such as the position of the planets.

The authors of the study argue that popular almanacs in the mid-18th century “revealed a view of the natural world of religious significance” – in other words, destroyed Galileo’s works with pseudoscience.

Many calendars published today show accurate astronomical information, but also contain cooking tips, horticultural folk remedies and home remedies.

Although the popularity of almanacs declined during the time when planetary science was neglected from the 2000s to the 1950s, their influence remained.

According to researchers, this happens when astronomical images like those moons are not planets penetrate the scientific literature.

“It may seem like a small change, but it undermines the central idea of ​​planets moving from Galileo,” Medzer said. Planets are no longer defined by complex geography and the potential for life and civilization. Rather, it is defined as the simplicity of following some of the best paths around the sun.

In the 1960s, space travel revived interest and research into the planets and objects in our solar system.

During this period, some scholars began to re-apply the definition of geophysics proposed by Galileo in the scientific literature.

However, when the International Astronomical Union decided to vote for the definition in 2006, it was believed to be smaller than the planets, excluding moons and many other planetary objects, the researchers said.

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To justify this belief, the International Astronomical Union proposed an additional need for a planet – which would have to study its orbit. Therefore, some scientists have tried to find a way to mathematically justify a small number of planets, based on which a planet must destroy its orbit. It was actually created as a precursor to regulate a few planets.

The team argues that orbital surveying is a description of the current trajectory of the planet, but this gives no idea of ​​the inherent nature of the body.

Research also shows that this is not a standard that scientists have used to classify planets in the past.

“This is the current interpretation of things,” Medzer says. “But, for example, if a star passes by and our solar system crashes, the orbits of the planets will no longer be counted. It’s like defining mammals – whether they are mammals or not.

Paul Byrne, a planetary scientist at Washington State University who is not involved in this new study, believes in defining a geographically active planet.

Byrne, who wrote in Science Focus earlier this year, said those who voted to classify the new planet in 2006 were “more astronomers” than geologists.

He also noted that the decision of the International Astronomical Union was to “avoid adding to the walls of children the unreasonably huge posters of hundreds of different planets in our solar system.”

He added: “If we recognized Pluto as a sphere, should we consider the Moon as a sphere? Or is Jupiter’s moon much larger (even smaller than Mercury)? As a geologist, my opinion is: ‘Yes, why not?’

He said that if the definition were changed and several hundred objects were officially created on the solar system planets, children would “easily say their names and describe the names of dinosaurs, of which 700 or more species have been documented.”

This problem is all the more significant as new technology, such as the James Web Space Telescope, launched this month, allows us to detect more planets outside our solar system known as the Exoplanets.

Source: Daily Mail

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