RGClark
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Alan Stern gives a more detailed account of his reasons for calling Pluto a planet in this interview from 2011:
Pluto's Planet Title Defender: Q & A With Planetary Scientist Alan Stern.
By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer | August 24, 2011 12:00am ET
http://www.space.com/12710-pluto-defender-alan-stern-dwarf-planet-interview.html
The key point is the "clearing the neighborhood" argument would also fail for an Earth-sized planet at Pluto's location in the Solar System. The reason is it is too large an area to clear out that far from the Sun.
By the way, Stern is not opposed to the term "dwarf planet", in fact he first proposed it. But he says the term "dwarf" should only be an adjective to describe its size. It should still be considered a planet. It would be analogous to "rocky planet" being used to described Earth-sized planets, which are of course still planets.
The key question is do we want to have a scenario where a star system, including our own, might have hundreds of planets? We may very well find other systems with Earth-sized or larger planets at Pluto-distances from their star. In that case they would also not clear their neighborhood but it would be hard to say they are not planets.
Bob Clark
Pluto's Planet Title Defender: Q & A With Planetary Scientist Alan Stern.
By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer | August 24, 2011 12:00am ET
http://www.space.com/12710-pluto-defender-alan-stern-dwarf-planet-interview.html
The key point is the "clearing the neighborhood" argument would also fail for an Earth-sized planet at Pluto's location in the Solar System. The reason is it is too large an area to clear out that far from the Sun.
By the way, Stern is not opposed to the term "dwarf planet", in fact he first proposed it. But he says the term "dwarf" should only be an adjective to describe its size. It should still be considered a planet. It would be analogous to "rocky planet" being used to described Earth-sized planets, which are of course still planets.
The key question is do we want to have a scenario where a star system, including our own, might have hundreds of planets? We may very well find other systems with Earth-sized or larger planets at Pluto-distances from their star. In that case they would also not clear their neighborhood but it would be hard to say they are not planets.
Bob Clark