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Are the Trojans left overs from the planet formation days or are they captured objects.
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Does it matter?? Does Pluto's status depend on whether it was a captured object, or a leftover from formation of other planets?
The IAU certainly didn't think so because their definition of a planet does NOT include any mention as to How or Where objects come from, only whether or not an "orbit has been cleared".
As you said yourself David you could take these issues to the nth degree and exclude earth from planetary status - and isn't that the very problem here in that the IAU definition is so poorly worded that as a scientific definition it is ambiguous and near meaningless. Science should be exact & precise - the IAU's definition contains nothing of either of these qualities and I think this is why so many people do not respect this decision.
Throw any half decent lawyer at that definition in a courtroom and it would be thrown out in 10 minutes, including 3 minutes for the intro and 5 for the summation.