............... Conclusions
- Defining "planet" is not science, but an important social, cultural, and political endeavor.
- The IAU defines a planet as:
- is in orbit around the Sun
- self-gravity overcomes rigid body forces (round)
- has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit.
- This definition has difficulties, but so do all the others.
- However, it main problem concerns objects that probably do not exist in the Solar System.
- The "roundness" criteria has problems for objects that we know exist.
- We will also have to deal with 1000 planets.
This talk can be found at
www.boulder.swri.edu/~hal/talks.html
