yes but by this def. jupiter has to be reclassified as a dwarf planet. at least that is what they are saying at the nine/eight planets sight.

i personal think dwarf should be used the same gas, and rocky. ie dwarf planets, rocky planets, gas planets. thus meaning we would have two new planets not one less.

What are you all talking about? Pluto's a dog.

Regardless, if space combat at actual scale would be unplayable and boring, do you think space combat at an actual scale in real life would be boring, and quite hard? I mean, so many people wrote books with space combat in them, but I'm guessing space combat would only occur around actual planets, because the probability of actually meeting someone in all that space is next to nill without huge ships.

good luck invading Jupiter, and a space station, which can be invaded, is a celestial object: does that make it a planet? good joke though.



did you miss something? they ARE called "dwarf planets."

however, i'm not actually sure if the IAU employs a formal distinction between terrestrial planets and gas giants. it probably hasn't come up because there's such an obvious distinction between the two in our own solar system. according to the current IAU definition, planets must revolve around the sun (i.e., our sun). it was their way of delaying further discussion about the definition of planets and various possible subplanet-types that orbit other stars. there may be types of planet we've never imagined, and i think the IAU doesn't want to start creating defintions before they have at least some evidence to use based on other star systems. it may well turn out that our solar system is a freakish anomaly.

in any regard, what's in a label? "a methane atmosphere by any other name..."

it sounds like you want their classifications to match up with the planet types from Space Empires IV...  

i see. well, Ceres isn't mostly ice; it's ice and rock in about equal proportions, at least as far as we can tell.

it's relatively easy to tell what a celestial body is made of if we can see it at all, but they're small and pretty distant; even Hubble only gets fuzzy visuals.

i believe the idea behind the current definition was to facilitate easy, clear-cut distinctions. it's a lot easier to detect if a body orbits our sun, if it's spherical, and if it's gravity is the center of town, so to speak.

i think the current definition comes down to the prestige one gets from discovering and therefore naming a planet or celestial object. the IAU also maintains international rules about how things should be named. Trans-Neptunian objects are supposed to be named in relation to creation myths, but the rules for planets are different.

though you might find it interesting that some astronomers refer to Uranus and Neptune as "ice giants" because their makeup and size is different enough from Saturn and Jupiter. keep in mind this is only the IAU's definition. some astronomers still call Pluto a planet, and some never considered it a planet. each individual is free to think of things as s/he sees fit; the IAU only comes up with definitions and common naming systems so that we can understand each other.

mumblefratz just got an erection