The IAU has decided that they need to have a name for the things that are similar to Pluto. So today, they announced that they’ve settled on the name plutoid for this category of objects. I know that they raised a furor with some people when they demoted Pluto from planet status a few years ago, but come on. A new name for a category, that seems only designed to appease the Pluto Is Still A Planet people that are still crying at their eyepeices that they only have 8 planets to check off of their lists.
From an educational point of view, the re-defining of the planet definition was a great teachable moment in my astronomy class. The kids had some pre-conceived notions and they really had to work and think hard about the nature of science and what it means to actually categorize and name things, and why it’s done.
Now I’ll have to come up with a way next year to incorporate this new classification. I guess seeing science change is kind of cool, but this seems more committee work that a real scientific problem to be worked out. This is politics in action, more than science.
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