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Comment by ChuckMcM | Hacker News Reader

"That's no moon" :-). But more seriously, just another giant lump of stuff swinging around the solar system. I am not an astronomer, so I'm not sure about some of the things I'm reading in that report but to me, it seems to be in the solar ecliptic. But its far enough away even at perigee that the only thing of note it might interact with would be Pluto.

I suppose that flying through the Oort cloud it might periodically launch ice balls into the inner solar system.

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> But its far enough away even at perigee

Minor astrodynamics nit: "perigee" is a term specific to Earth. The generic term for all bodies is "periapsis", and the term for the Sun is "perihelion"

(Astrodynamics terms generally take from the Greek, rather than Latin)

It boggles my mind when I look up at the Moon, that in fact it's a massive rock travelling at something like 2,000 mph, always trying to fall onto the Earth, and missing it all the time.

If my goal was to fall into the earth and kept missing I would be depressed too. Each try it misses by slightly more and it's orbital distance increases. How sad is that?

Also, I like to anthropomorphize inanimate objects because secretly they hate it.

its getting further away, if it helps your understanding of the situation better

“falling into” was never part of the equation

Earth is also constantly failing at falling into the Moon.

Why did we have to evolve in such a loser system??

only thing of note it might interact with would be Pluto

Is Pluto a planet again, or not? Honest question because I don't keep up on these things because they have no practical effect other than drama...and I try to avoid drama.

No. It’s smaller than other moons in our solar system. It’s never going to be a planet again, but a planetoid, dwarf planet, or even asteroid is appropriate.

Just to be pedantic, Mercury is also "smaller than other moons in our solar system"

And never is a long time, especially for something as fickle as human classification.

You’re right, it’s about gravitational domination.

Agreed.

My (uninformed) guess is they will eventually reclassify all non-moon objects in hydrostatic equilibrium (anything round) as planets, which will make Pluto a planet again and bring in a half-dozen new objects.

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