Re: Pluto vote 'hijacked' in revolt

"KA" == Ken Arromdee <arromdee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

KA> One of the amusing parts is that "dwarf planet" has nothing
KA> whatsoever to do with size. If they were to find two
KA> Neptune-sized objects in the Kuiper Belt, they would be "dwarf
KA> planets".

As my previous answer implies, I don't think that this is the case.
Neptune does control the orbits of objects "nearby." My recollection
is that parts of the Kuiper Belt are easily explained as being due to
the gravitational interactions with Neptune.

If another Neptune-sized object were found, it would have to be
sufficiently distant that the mutual gravitational interactions
between it and Neptune were small enough so that Neptune's orbit is
stable. I think that would mean that both it and Neptune would be
classified as planets.

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