this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2024
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Showerthoughts
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If Pluto is a planet, then Ceres is a planet too. CERES RIGHTS!
Let's just acknowledge that anything big enough to be round is a planet. That's the bare minimum criteria.
Orbit shapes and clear paths don't matter, the Solar system isn't a typical stellar system, many aren't so stable and ordered, especially in binary and triplet star systems. So the pedantry around the shapes of the orbits of the outer kuiper planets is a very silly thing to argue about. After all most orbits in binary and triplet systems aren't even predictable long term, let alone not circular.
OK, can you name all planets in the solar system?
Sure. Jeff, Darryl, Norma, Luanne, I got lotsa names.
So that makes Earth and Moon a binary planet system. I'm cool with that
I believe the rule of thumb is binary planets' barycentre is external to either body. This is the case with Pluto/Charon, ~~I think it's also the case with Earth/Moon.~~
It is not the case with the earth and the moon. It would be if the moon was 40% more massive
Yeah, I went and checked after posting.
My hunch is that if the moon was closer it would 'drag' the barycentre closer to the moon.
Which, given the moon is slowly receeding, means it was probably a binary early on in the formation of the solar system.
Other way around, the further apart the objects are the less likely the barycentre is to be inside one of them, you can picture it as a rubber band with a dot drawn on it, the more you stretch it the further the dot gets from both ends even if it gets further from one end faster.
Remember the Cant!