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by perl4ever
1828 days ago
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>One of the criteria for planethood is an assumption that the body clears its own orbit. Is that so? "The generic definition of a centaur is a small body that orbits the Sun between Jupiter and Neptune and crosses the orbits of one or more of the giant planets" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centaur_(small_Solar_System_bo... There are tens of thousands, so perhaps the definition of a planet is even more abstruse than people let on. And apparently at least dozens have been identified as probably of interstellar origin, while it is thought that a centaur can become a moon, (e.g. Phoebe) so I wonder if we can really rule out that moons "come hurtling out of the cosmos": "Being able to tell apart interstellar asteroids from native asteroids born in the Solar System has long eluded astronomers, but the team’s results identified 19 asteroids of interstellar origin. These are currently orbiting as part of the group of asteroids known as Centaurs, which roam the space in between the giant planets of the Solar System." https://ras.ac.uk/news-and-press/research-highlights/interst... |
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Yes, it is. The definition of "clearing an orbit" isn't precisely defined, but it doesn't have to be since there appears to be a large natural gap in how much orbit clearing an planet does vs. a dward planet.
> A large body that meets the other criteria for a planet but has not cleared its neighbourhood is classified as a dwarf planet. That includes Pluto, whose orbit intersects with Neptune's orbit and shares its orbital neighbourhood with many Kuiper belt objects. The IAU's definition does not attach specific numbers or equations to this term, but all IAU-recognised planets have cleared their neighbourhoods to a much greater extent (by orders of magnitude) than any dwarf planet or candidate for dwarf planet.[0]
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearing_the_neighbourhood