Dominate your orbit

In 1929 Pluto was quietly charging around the sun on its funky 17 degree akimbo orbit, then bam. A bloke called Clyde spots it and by 1930, it’s a planet.


One of 9 legends, named after a Roman god and learned by every school kid for generations. You can probably list them in order in your head right now.

Except of course the order of Saturn and Jupiter, or is it Jupiter then Saturn?

Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto. Trust your Roman history again here team, Jupiter Optimo Maximus - best and greatest come first.


Back to Pluto though and it’s incredible change of status. This happens to people sometimes too. Suddenly their innate characteristics and features are interpreted in a new way, for good or for ill. We are who we are, until one day another Clyde out there discovers us and puts a new label on. As we all know, in our society, labels are powerful. All of a sudden, socially speaking we’re now a planet, or not as the case may be.


In this story, 76 years later, Pluto was reappraised and labelled again, this time into a dwarf planet. It didn’t dominate its orbit. You’ve got to clear your region with your massive orbital power if you want to be a planet these days.

Pluto went from mysterious outer celestial lump, to full blown planet status and then off into the multitude of dwarfs and sundry beyond Neptune. All while actually changing very little at all.


Pluto’s last 95 years makes me think two things:
1 - dominating your orbit means something.
2 - watch out for labels, they are consequential.