The world, the universe and us Dead Planets Society: #5 The Return of Pluto
Sep 11, 2023
Join Leah and Chelsea as they belatedly mourn the loss of Pluto as a planet. Guests Kathryn Volk and Konstantin Batygin discuss various approaches to boosting Pluto's status, including increasing its mass and dragging it into the inner solar system. They also explore reimagining Pluto's planetary status by dropping a black hole inside it or physically moving it. The podcast also touches on the stability of Pluto and the potential consequences of a close gravitational encounter with Neptune.
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Hosts' Personal Pluto Positions
- Chelsea Whyte expresses strong personal attachment to Pluto and outrage over its 2006 demotion.
- Leah Crane contrasts that with many scientists' ambivalence and her younger self opposing Pluto's planet status.
Why Pluto Was Demoted
- The IAU defines a planet by orbiting a star, being spherical, and clearing its orbit of other large objects.
- Pluto fails the third criterion because it hasn't cleared its orbital neighbourhood.
Mass Needed To Make Pluto A Planet
- To clear its orbit at Pluto's distance you'd need roughly 0.1 Earth masses, far larger than Pluto's current ~0.002 Earth masses.
- That means making Pluto a planet at its current location requires adding almost a whole Mars-sized body's worth of mass.