Since I’ve become disillusioned with the IAU’s planet classification system, and since I’m a science fiction writer, I’ve decided to make my own system.<\/p>\n
Here is my proposed naming and classification system. Feel free to suggest alternatives. I will probably be using this system when I get back to my grand future history, multiple novel epic, The Terraforming Project. See this link for info<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n Planets<\/b> are visibly star-like objects , which move in relationship to the fixed star background, and that can be seen with the unaided eye from Earth. Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn<\/i><\/p>\n Gas Giants<\/b> Large objects dominantly composed of gases, but which do not use fusion to produce their own heat. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.<\/i><\/p>\n Stars<\/b> Large objects dominantly composed of gases, but which do use fusion to produce their own heat.<\/p>\n Planetoids<\/b> Objects dominantly composed of solid matter, which has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Luna, Mars, Ceres, major moons of gas giants, Pluto, Chiron, Xena, and other trans plutonian objects.<\/i><\/p>\n Asteroids<\/b> Objects dominantly composed of solid matter, which have sufficient gravity to hold smaller objects on their surface. Moons of Mars, asteroid belt objects, smaller moons of gas giants, etc.<\/i><\/p>\n Clutter<\/b> Solid objects which do not have sufficient gravity to hold smaller objects.<\/p>\n Notes: Rather than be wordy, I left the obvoius exclusions off, e.g. a planetoid can also hold small objects by gravity, but that doesn’t make it an asteroid.<\/p>\n I’m curious what people think. Any obvious problems?<\/p>\n Within these classifications, there would be subclasses, as needed. Planets<\/b> is just a historical class and isn’t really useful for newly discovered objects, unless we get a visitor from somewhere else, like in “When Worlds Collide”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Since I’ve become disillusioned with the IAU’s planet classification system, and since I’m a science fiction writer, I’ve decided to make my own system. Here is my proposed naming and classification system. Feel free to suggest alternatives. I will probably be using this system when I get back to my grand future history, multiple novel… Continue reading Planet Classification<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1],"tags":[394,395,81],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4t90x-O6","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3106"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3106"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3107,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3106\/revisions\/3107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrymelton.net\/2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}