I think the rule of “cleared its own orbit” tried to be less arbitrary and failed horribly.
A size threshold is clearly more consistent, but it’s purely arbitrary, while the “cleared its own orbit” rule at least has the appearence of not being totally arbitrary, even though it introduces just the problem you are describing.
I totally get your point.
I think the rule of “cleared its own orbit” tried to be less arbitrary and failed horribly.
A size threshold is clearly more consistent, but it’s purely arbitrary, while the “cleared its own orbit” rule at least has the appearence of not being totally arbitrary, even though it introduces just the problem you are describing.
it’s fine to place arbitrary separations in a spectrum as long as we are aware it’s a spectrum.
but it’s also annoying that “dwarf” implies smaller, and as I said before, we could have gas giants that could be classified as a dwarf planets.
and without a doubt there are exoplanets that are gas giants but also dwarf.
which is just plain stupid.