Quote:
Originally Posted by antoniseb
Trillions (maybe even way beyond septillions) of planets around our Sun. Your definition has no lower size limit. Do you count a single Iron ion orbiting the Sun in between Jupiter and Saturn a planet? How about a dust grain composed of between a hundred and a thousand atoms? How about a five micron chip from an asteroid released by a collision?
If you choose this idea for a planet, you are changing the definition of the term very substantially.
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That is correct. But our original conclusion was not that the word "planet" would necessarily survive to describe all of the bodies in orbit around the sun. But we do need one. If we choose "planet" then we have allowed all those bodies whose electrical/elastic characterisitics that exceed their gravitational characteristics to become planets. I don't think that will happen but I do think we may need an inclusive term for all bodies. Perhaps you may be suggesting that we throw out "planetary nebula?"