[halgir]

Because more people know about Pluto than Eris or Sedna. And we know that Pluto is the furthest away planet (sue me). So 15x Pluto is much easier to visualize in context of the entire solar system than 700x Earth. My cosmological knowledge is above average, but I don't know off the top of my head if 700 AU is super-duper far away or still in the range of the gas giants.

[SequoiaHope]

Agree. Pluto anchors is to visualizations I can remember.

[StopDisinfo910]

> And we know that Pluto is the furthest away planet (sue me)

I don't need to sue you. It's just entirely incorrect by any sane definitions of a planet. It's not the further if you include similar bodies or not a planet. As I have no interest in saving American misplaced pride (because let's not kid ourself it's about anything else), I don't see the point of spreading misinformation.

> Because more people know about Pluto than Eris or Sedna

Only if you were born before it was retrograded which will be less and less likely as time goes on.

> My cosmological knowledge is above average, but I don't know off the top of my head if 700 AU is super-duper far away or still in the range of the gas giants.

I'm not convinced that giving it in multiple of the distance between Pluto and the sun is in any way more useful than distance between the Earth and the sun or that it helps conceptualise the distance relative to the gas giants.

Anyway, Pluto orbit is highly excentric so you have 20AU of wiggle room here when considering distance.

[halgir]

I know it's not a planet, hence my sarcastic "sue me". I suppose the self-irony didn't work too well over text. My point was that many people still know about Pluto as a body that's at the edge of many people's everyday conceptualizations of the solar system, and I argue that makes it a more useful tool for helping people intuitively understand the particular distances involved.

> Only if you were born before it was retrograded which will be less and less likely as time goes on.

I admit my age plays into it. Though I am curious about the role Pluto has in modern primary school, do you know? I understand that it now has the same technical status as Eris et al., but I think it's still a fantastic example of how scientific understanding develops and changes. Not on par with discarding heliocentricity, but a very practical example of ongoing changes still present in our own time.

> As I have no interest in saving American misplaced pride (because let's not kid ourself it's about anything else)

I don't understand how this ties into American pride (nor am I American), what did I miss?

[StopDisinfo910]

> I don't understand how this ties into American pride (nor am I American), what did I miss?

Pluto was the only planet discovered by an American and most of the people who are extremely attached to it tend to feel that removing Pluto as a planet is somehow taking something away from the USA.

As far as I know, the topic barely exists at all in other countries.

[halgir]

Thanks for explaining, I've never heard about this. In my social circle, nobody would seriously try to argue that it should still count as a "real" planet, but we still refer to Pluto-as-planet in an affectionate, nostalgic way.