“Planet” in my book is anything that’s too big to just be a large lumpy rock. Something with sufficient gravity to pull itself into the shape of a sphere.
The idea of planets needing to orbit in eliptical orbits on a plane, or clear their own paths is a bias from living in a stable planetary system, but much of the planetary systems and indeed much of the universe doesn’t have the stability that exists in this local area, it’s especially the case in younger planetary systems as well as much older ones.
Also many planets in the universe don’t even have stars, they are rogue, scattered throughout the darkness between the stars.
Now, whether or not they meet a specific criteria for a specific standard used in a scientific field is not in debate. Obviously, the standard for what defines a planet in a given field of study is applicable in that field.
However, for the rest of us, we don’t have to use that standard. See, using a language for something lile science is filled with this kind of thing when you use a living language that’s why Latin is so often the default for situations where you need fixed definitions. Otherwise, you deal with this issue constantly.
Though, tbh, even that’s no certain protection because people will borrow words, or misuse them just because we’re essentially a bunch of parrots playing with sounds sometimes. Lol at what happened with words like idiot or moron. They used to have a fixed, certain meaning with a standard used to apply them. Now they’re just insults.
The “planets” have existed in the public awareness with a much looser definition than what is used in scientific fields. Pretty much anything can be a planet in colloquial usage, so long as it orbits the sun. Now, I believe most people would insist on a lower size threshold where something is no longer a planet, but some other term. The problem is that there’s not a consensus on that lower limit.
With ceres and eris in specific, most people that are aware they exist are gong to be into “space” in some way, maybe even professionally. That makes the usage of planet for them less common than for Pluto, but the more casual the interest in such things, the more likely they are to get lumped in as “the 10th planet” or 10th and 11th, depending on who is saying things.
But, for casual conversation, I’d say that all three are planets. I’d have to look up the standards again because I’m fucking old, but I would also be just fine with someone calling them dwarf planets, or planetoids, or whatever.
Seriously. Until someone is just outright ignoring common usage and making up definitions nobody else uses, this kind of thing is just part of the fun of being monkeys that make complex sounds. None of us are obligated to use jargon definitions in casual settings, and trying to force that is not only pointless, it’s sometimes rude.
IIRC the current theory is that many (likely most) had feathers but few of the large ones had actual wings beyond just a row of longer feathers on the forearms. The bodily structures that allow flight are absent on the vast majority of dinosaurs so it’s thought they mostly used their arm feathers as rudders for better control when running (which the ostrich and other large flightless birds still use). However, it is thought that some smaller species likely did have wings which they used to glide much like a flying squirrel. Eventually they evolved larger chest muscles and a keel for attaching said large muscles, and at that point you could reasonably just call them birds, which are to this day a subset of dinosaurs.
That’s not “science,” that’s just an arbitrary convention that can help simplify communication of complex toppics. The genetic data that the convention is derived from is the science, in the form of a lineage of genetic relations between organisms and nothing else, because biology has exactly zero built-in categories or labels, and those are all human-made.
Exactly, it’s not science. And it’s not helpful either. It doesn’t simplify communication. The representative conventions of taxonomy are not derived from evidence, they’re derived from the irrelevant feelings of taxonomists hundreds of years ago who didn’t understand how the world works. It’s pseudoscience. Pointless tradition masquerading as a legitimate exploratory endeavour.
Then you find out that the lack of an ingredient results in the microbes producing the product lol.
Certain algae for example, need to be “starved” in a way that results in them switching from conventional photosynthesis that produces glucose to photosynthesis that functions to generate Hydrogen and Oxygen alone. The Oxygen is used for respiration and the Hydrogen is essentially dumped as a waste product. They can only sustain this for relatively short periods before their stockpile of carbohydrates is sufficiently depleted. Which means these bioreactors need to be cycled through a fattening phase where the algae stockpile fuel and a starvation phase where they exhaust that stockpile while producing Hydrogen.
Ive been trying to keep tabs on the literature in biochemistry, chemistry and other fields for decades. I inevitably come accross things like this from time to time. These particular articles I just googled because I dont have the bookmark for the original paper discussing Hydrogen production back in 2000.
This happened to me 2 nights ago. I was fishing for catfish and it was 9pm. The sun went down at like 5. I’m in the woods with a bright headlamp on, and there is an old service road behind me that I’ve never seen anyone drive down before.
So, imagine my surprise when I see 2 headlights coming down the service road. When I realized it was coming towards me I cut off my headlamp. I don’t know if it’s like this everywhere, but in the south everyone I know was taught to always assume people in the woods are up to no good and to be avoided.
Anyway, the truck stops on the hill 30 meters above me. I grabbed my machete in preparation for whatever is about to happen and continue fishing in case they are lost or something. I can hear rap music blaring from the radio. So, I’m pretty sure not a game warden, and about that time I see a second truck coming down the road. It stops behind the first. They get out and talk for a few mins then leave in opposite directions.
I was incredibly relieved that nothing happened, but I also went ahead and packed up and left after that.
That was actually the second crazy thing that happened on that trip. The first happened earlier while it was still light out. I was at a spot where a long country straight away was up above where I was fishing.
I heard a car go by really fast. Then I heard the tires scrr short pause scrrr long pause then scrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr BOOM!!! The boom was so hard and close I felt it in the ground. A few mins go by and a cop car goes by then a fire truck then another fire truck. After a few more mins an ambulance with siren on goes by. A few more minutes later I saw that same ambulance leaving without sirens and not in a hurry.
That’s awesome. Both in the funny way, and that they were able to push through the emotions that come with those sorts of conflicts and finish their work. Good for them.
Since none chimed in (in the past 6 minutes) , I, an idiot, will share what I think I know. When reconstructing the faces of people from a skull, either with clay or software, they model the various tissues–muscles, fat, skin, etc according to models based on samples. How they would do this for a creature that isn’t very like any current living creature I don’t know. It is probably educated guesswork?
I just read an article on this process for a neanderthal and in that particular instance they used data from humans since I guess it was close enough.
But, for example (referencing a recent meme) how do they know spinosaur had a sail and not a hump back and neck muscles like a buffalo?? Seriously though I’m sure they can tell which bones have attachment points, how much force they can withstand, etc.
As another idiot, there is a difference between tusks and teeth. They are different, tusks don't contain enamel for example and I think aliens could also determine this difference. It's rare for teeth to stick out like in the reconstruction.
They would also be able to determine that hippos can open their mouth extremely wide. Making it more likely for the long "fangs" to be at least partially covered and not exposed like the tusks of elephants.
Often, dinosaurs are depicted with mouths showing their tooth. This is debated and more and more scientists think they had closed mouths, like most animals today.
Other than that, the proposition of fat is very hard to reconstruct. Reconstructing a hippo you would have other mammals in mind and reconstructing dinosaurs, scientists take reptiles but they could as well take birds so this is a big question.
Over the last few decades there have been massive improvements on telling which bones have attachment points for muscles and hints at how strong the muscles are likely to be, but it takes a long time to replace all of the existing artwork with newer and more accurate artwork.
Even with improvements to the muscle structure, any part of the body that has fatty buildup like breasts would be missed without soft tissues being preserved. I am fairly certain that a hippos nose and lip area wouldn't have enough detail to reconstruct accurately. Heck, tyrannosaurs most likely had lips to cover their teeth, but that is based on other animals with similar teeth all having lips to protect the teeth from dryness and rot that doesn't apply to crocodiles who live in a very wet environment.
For those who are curious it’s properly balanced. There are 24 slots available. Pairs: 1-13, 2-14, 6-18, 9-21, 10-22 Triple: 8-16-24 All pairs and triples have their centers of mass on the rotation axis.
If you don’t want to figure out some awkward balancing techniques, you can just use a balance tube. Fill a tube with water to a similar height of the tube it opposes.
The baseplate came from the green in the bar graph. As we know all, the base plate is the foundation for any major project. Regardless that the bar graph shows little green compared to everything else. Green is far more important and we should focus all our efforts on the color green.
In a major coincidence, green is the color of money and I am now moving into a bigger house.
Edit: The fact that I got upvotes for a poorly written post amazes me.
I used my particle physics and knowledge of quantum topology to hybridise a new species of drought-resistant pineapple just the other day. It’s that easy!
Oh, I do my plumbing based on political science. But that’s not especially modern. The real genius is using music theory to run my email server. I’m setting self-hosted jazz on a saxophone next weekend.
Well, we did have plenty of engineered items before having the proper physics theory to explain what was happening. Physics does a whole lot more than simply enabling engineering to do more. It’s the basis of our understanding of the universe.
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