Astrophysics Terminology.

[swestrup]

Since we have now clarified what size something has to be to be called a 'planet', we need to take it all the way and make the terminology consistent with that of 'meteor'. After all science is all about rigidly orthogonal terminological structures. And so, since we already have:

Meteoroid: A modestly (pebble- to boulder-) sized object in space.
Meteor: A meteoroid that is falling within a planetary atmosphere.
Metorite: The remains of a Metor (if any) after it strikes a planetary surface.

Thus we are required to have:

Planetoid: An object of sufficient mass that its self-gravity pulls it into a spheroid shape.
Planet: A planetoid that has entered the atmosphere.
Planetite: The remains (if any) of a Planet that has struck another planet.

By these definitions we can clearly see that Pluto is not a planet but a planetoid, as are most of the so-called 'planets' in our solar system. Luckily, it seems that both true planets and planetites are quite rare.

Comments

[swestrup]

Actually, I think that the standard suffix is anti-i, anti-t, anti-e, so (depending on commutation rules, of course) we may end up with Jupr.