What do you think Constitutes a Planet?

[Sidhe]

As well as based on an arbitrary historical cut-off.

No it's based on reason from the world, not your precision.

And why is that so bad? Why do you have to have such arbitrary rules?

Yours is the problem Perfection, you have to have everything meeting a criteria, sadly the world doesn't work that way, and neither does the universe, as much as you like to force it into your own mind set, ya can't.

Everything is perfect apparently must obey absolute rules, the longer you live the more you become enamoured of the fact, that nothing obeys your mindset, no matter how much you try to force the universe into it.

 

[Perfection]

How about:

"Big enough that a person couldn't jump off of it"?

There'd be a hell of a lot of planets by that definition!

Hmm, but then the only way something like that happens is an extreme close (and probably rare) approaches to another star, so exceptions would probably be made based on that.

Not neccesarily, there are plenty of intra system interactions that could produce such change. Also, remember star systems tend to have multiple stars in them.

Potential? This is up to much speculation of what could potentially have formed a planet, such as an object in the asteroid belt could have potentially formed a planet, except there was Jupiter there.

You misunderstand. The potential would be that a body of that size would have significant impacts in that orbit of small bodies within its orbital locus if only it has been around long enough for the effects to become noticable.

Not enough to have the surfaces of planets to have molten surfaces due to asteroid bombardment.

Yeah, but enough to kill random animals...

No it's based on reason from the world, not your precision.

And that reason is?

And why is that so bad? Why do you have to have such arbitrary rules?

What makes my rules especially arbitrary?

Yours is the problem Perfection, you have to have everything meeting a criteria, sadly the world doesn't work that way, and neither does the universe, as much as you like to force it into your own mind set, ya can't.

Everything is perfect apparently must obey absolute rules, the longer you live the more you become enamoured of the fact, that nothing obeys your mindset, no matter how much you try to force the universe into it.

What the greasy poop are you talking about? I'm not forcing the universe to do anything. I'm just saying we change our mindset to better reflect the way the universe works.

What's wrong with wanting a coherant definition.

 

[Bluemofia]

Not neccesarily, there are plenty of intra system interactions that could produce such change. Also, remember star systems tend to have multiple stars in them.

But soon (relitivly) after the planets stop forming and the disk is blown away, the systems tend to stabalize itself by ejecting/swallowing objects of unstable orbits anyways...

You misunderstand. The potential would be that a body of that size would have significant impacts in that orbit of small bodies within its orbital locus if only it has been around long enough for the effects to become noticable.

Ok, so let's say there hypothetically was a Mars sized object forming a between Jupiter and Mars. (aside from the asteroid precursors)

But it's orbit was altered by a close encounter with Mars, and was sent on a resonance orbit with Jupiter, and then was ejected from the solar system.

It is a planet, because it potentially could have been one, if the circumstances would have permit it, correct? Or am I going farther down the wrong direction?

 

[Perfection]

But soon (relitivly) after the planets stop forming and the disk is blown away, the systems tend to stabalize itself by ejecting/swallowing objects of unstable orbits anyways...

Well, I wouldn't use that as a hard and fast rule. Metastable systems can exist for billions of years before collapsing, a good example whould be Triton which in a few billion years is gonna smash into Neptune. I would not discount such types of timings from occuring in other solar systems.

Ok, so let's say there hypothetically was a Mars sized object forming a between Jupiter and Mars. (aside from the asteroid precursors)

But it's orbit was altered by a close encounter with Mars, and was sent on a resonance orbit with Jupiter, and then was ejected from the solar system.

It is a planet, because it potentially could have been one, if the circumstances would have permit it, correct? Or am I going farther down the wrong direction?

No it was a planet in the time of orbit because it could have had significant solar system effects had it remained in its position. Now it's, well, something else (think up a fun and creative name).

 

[Perfection]

But soon (relitivly) after the planets stop forming and the disk is blown away, the systems tend to stabalize itself by ejecting/swallowing objects of unstable orbits anyways...

Well, I wouldn't use that as a hard and fast rule. Metastable systems can exist for billions of years before collapsing, a good example whould be Triton which in a few billion years is gonna smash into Neptune. I would not discount such types of timings from occuring in other solar systems.

Ok, so let's say there hypothetically was a Mars sized object forming a between Jupiter and Mars. (aside from the asteroid precursors)

But it's orbit was altered by a close encounter with Mars, and was sent on a resonance orbit with Jupiter, and then was ejected from the solar system.

It is a planet, because it potentially could have been one, if the circumstances would have permit it, correct? Or am I going farther down the wrong direction?

No it was a planet in the time of orbit because it could have had significant solar system effects had it remained in its position. Now it's, well, something else (think up a fun and creative name).

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

By the way, for all of those who want to grandfather Pluto as a planet just because it has been called a planet for a whopping 60 years, let me remind you that the Greeks and others considered both the sun and the moon to be planets for thousands of years.