I agree with the decision for a number of reasons:
1. If it was discovered now, it would not be called a planet.
2. The inclination of its orbit makes it appear different to all the other "planets".
3. Its orbit comes inside another orbit, also making it an odd man out.
4. If it was kept a planet, then we would have the potential in the future of being stuck with dozens of similar "planets".
The decision needs to be made by those with the knowledge to make an unemotional decision, if we were to leave decisions like this to the general public, would be still consider the world to be made up of combinations of the "four elements"? I am sure people missed the comfort they felt knowing that everthing could be described in such terms (in fact I am sure there are borderline fringe elements who still consider this to be "science"). What if we still had to consider the Earth to be flat just to keep the public happy? Mind you there are still plenty flat earthers out there!
It just happens to be the "first" of a myriad of such objects that was discovered, in a time before we had the knowledge to realise what we had truly discovered. I am sure the subject will need to be revisited when we have more examples of planetary systems, around other stars, with even weirder characteristics...maybe Jupiter will need to be reclassified as a mid sized gas planet rather than a "gas giant". Earth may need to be classified as a "marginal life supporting planet" if we discover other "earths" that have many forms of life based on different chemistry rather than our single GATC based DNA...
That's what sets science apart from its pseudo counterparts...they are stuck in a time warp while science marches on!
|