Willie R. Meghar wrote:
snip

About Stars:

Stars remain stars regardless of where they are. A star in orbit
about another star is still a star. This is the case regardless of
anything occupying a nearby orbit. This is the case even if other
stars occupy the same orbit. Even a star found between two widely
separated galaxies would still be a star.

This applies elsewhere. Things are what they are, and only rarely do
they change what they are because of their location. A watch is a
watch whether it's on the retailer's shelf, strapped to my wrist, or in
a thief's pocket. It's a watch wheter or not it has a jeweled
movement, digital movement (yes, there have been such things), a
quartz oscillator, or some other mechanism for keeping time. It takes
very special circumstances for it's location to have an impact. Under
the wheels of a bus, it stops being a watch and becomes a piece of
junk, not because of it's location, but because the bus did something
dramatic to it, changing the nature of what it was.

snip

Pay no special attention to Pluto! Let it fall wherever in (or
outside) the definition or classification scheme. Pay no special
attention to orbits! (See "About Stars" above.). It's the physical
body we're interested in, regardless of where that body might be
found. If this means that some planetary satellites are also Planets,
then so be it!

It's not the job of science to keep the number of planets in our solar
system small for easy memorization by school children. It's more
important to have definitions and classification schemes that science
and astronomy can be proud of.

I think the real problem is trying to put a scientific definition to a
non-scientific term. Astronomers typically don't use the term
"shooting star" because it is a non-scientific term. Instead, new
terms were invented and defined. It makes no sense to try to define
"shooting star" scientifically because it is such a misleading term.

What's really needed is a new term (or, more likely, a set of new
terms) to define non-star bodies in space. I think astronomers need to
stop using the term "planet" exept when dealing with the public. We
figured out that calling man-made sattelites "moons" was not
appropriate, perhaps even before there were any.

Maybe it's time to throw out the term "planet" and replace it with a
new set of terms rather than try to force a scientific definition on a
term that has long outlived it's scientific usefulness.

Austin