Talk:3063: Planet Definitions

2025-03-14T21:54:21Z

172.69.6.5: Suggest Titan is the Saturnian moon which meets the Maritime definition

The one currently posted has Pluto highlighted in the second box and not highlighted in the first box. Too hard to tell if it's trolling or a genuine mistake. :-D

:Apparently a mistake since it's fixed now. [[User:HughNo|HughNo]] ([[User talk:HughNo|talk]]) 19:59, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

And the first one also has a moon hilighted instead I think?? [[Special:Contributions/162.158.126.5|162.158.126.5]] 15:59, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

:Was about to write the same. The coloring in the first two lines arund Pluto seem wrong (or mistankingly switched). --[[Special:Contributions/172.71.222.246|172.71.222.246]] 16:17, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

the coloring of Pluto does look inverted in the two first lines, they probably got switched by mistake--[[Special:Contributions/172.71.90.43|172.71.90.43]] 17:28, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

This, this is the hill I will die on. I was radicalised by this paper: [https://arxiv.org/abs/2110.15285 Moons Are Planets: "Scientific Usefulness Versus Cultural Teleology in the Taxonomy of Planetary Science"]
In short; planets are what planetary scientists study. Round things with the *good stuff*: atmospheres, oceans, volcanoes (of lava or water ice) (see diagram page 53).
Pluto, Titan, Ceres, Io and Europa are all in the sweet spot where you're not so small you're just a lump of rocks who happen to be stuck together into a lump, and not so large you're just a mostly undifferentiated mass of fusing hydrogen/helium plasma.
And it's consistent with our pre-20th Century understanding of what a planet is, whereas the IAU definition is trying to preserve 19th Century astrology. An amazing read and a strong recommend for anyone who cares about this subject. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.79.138|172.69.79.138]] 16:45, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

Does this sort of count as pi-related for pi day? [[User:TomtheBuilder|TomtheBuilder]] ([[User talk:TomtheBuilder|talk]]) 17:04, 14 March 2025 (UTC)
:he doesn't do themed comics anymore 😔 [[User:CalibansCreations|'''<span style="color:#ff0000;">Caliban</span>''']] ([[User talk:CalibansCreations|talk]]) 17:12, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

I was somewhat disappointed to get to the end of the table without seeing either an astrology or Sailor Moon joke. -- [[User:Angel|Angel]] ([[User talk:Angel|talk]]) 18:12, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

Is it possible that Uranus is marked under "Empiricist" because of the "Randall has seen Uranus" joke? [[Special:Contributions/172.70.42.178|172.70.42.178]] 18:38, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

The "{{w|Classical planet|Classical Planets}}" should be 7, including the Sun and the Moon.
:The average distance of the orbit of the Moon around the Earth must be slightly farther away than the orbit of the Sun around the Earth, since the Moon lags behind the Sun a little more each day, but the orbits must cross or we would never have a solar eclipse :P [[User:SammyChips|SammyChips]] ([[User talk:SammyChips|talk]]) 19:41, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

Wouldn't the Regolithic one depend on the exact definitions of "dirt", "ice", and "covered"? It seems that an argument could be made that the giant planets also count there but have a much thicker atmosphere on the outside, and disqualifying because of the atmosphere could exclude others like Earth depending on the exact threshold used. [[User:SammyChips|SammyChips]] ([[User talk:SammyChips|talk]]) 19:08, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

Has Randall not seen the sun before?
:I'm impressed that he has seen Uranus (unless that actually is a joke), especially if he saw it unaided (apparently it actually can be barely seen with the naked eye if the conditions are incredibly good). [[User:SammyChips|SammyChips]] ([[User talk:SammyChips|talk]]) 19:36, 14 March 2025 (UTC)
:Could the sun be classified as a "world"? --[[User:MothWaves|MothWaves]] ([[User talk:MothWaves|talk]]) 19:43, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

Technically, spacecraft have landed on Mercury, Jupiter, and Saturn. Just not in a survivable manner. [[User:Redacted II|Redacted II]] ([[User talk:Redacted II|talk]]) 19:37, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

It looks like the Pluto error in Traditionalist and Modernist images were fixed. I now see Pluto highlighted in traditionalist and Pluto unhighlighted in Modern. [[Special:Contributions/172.68.7.91|172.68.7.91]] 19:44, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

//Jean-Luc Margot wrote a serious planet definition proposal// in 2024 as a starting point for community conversations and welcomes feedback. In 2019 I wrote a small article myself on planet and moon classes simply by size. //Mondklassen "wwwahnsinn"// (in German).
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.159.108|162.158.159.108]] 19:49, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

I'm disputing that there has never been a formal definition of "planet" prior to 2006 - the ancient Greek definition of "wandering [relative to seemingly-fixed stars] points of light in the night sky" seems formal enough to me. I marked it {{tl|actual citation needed}}. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.227.73|198.41.227.73]] 19:52, 14 March 2025‎
: I've reworded the sentence to say "in modern times" so we aren't making unfounded and likely-incorrect claims about antiquity. [[Special:Contributions/198.41.227.73|198.41.227.73]] 21:19, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

Does anyone else strongly dislike the term '''natural satellite''' replacing ''moon''? Under the new nomenclature, only Earth's moon is 'the Moon'. All other moons are now merely natural satellites. Phobos, Deimos, Ganymede, are no longer considered moons. My biggest problem with the new definition is that planets themselves are natural satellites of stars. [[Special:Contributions/172.71.182.225|172.71.182.225]] 20:13, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

It seems likely that the Saturnian moon highlighted in the Maritime definition is Titan, since it has liquid seas and lakes on its surface. [[Special:Contributions/172.69.6.5|172.69.6.5]] 21:54, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

3056: RNA

2025-02-26T16:37:28Z

172.69.6.5: /* Transcript */

{{comic
| number = 3056
| date = February 26, 2025
| title = RNA
| image = rna_2x.png
| imagesize = 566x291px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = 2040s: RNA formed the basis for life each of the five known times it arose on the early Earth.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a BOT FROM RNAWORLD - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

EARLY EXPLANATION THIS IS A BASE: This Is a comic about the evolution of our understanding of RNA over time as our understanding of it improved. In the 1960s, our understanding was limited to DNA, but as the frames progress, we realized RNA also did things, and it turned weird as we learned that RNA is almost more important than DNA.
==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[In each panel, Cueball is standing in front of a poster. On the poster there is a picture of a double helix (presumably DNA) and some illegible text, although the poster is different in each panel. Each panel has a header indicating the decade in which it takes place.]

:'''1960s'''
:Cueball: Life is based on DNA, which uses RNA to make proteins do stuff.

:'''1980s'''
:[Cueball has his hand on his chin.]
:Cueball: Also, the RNA does some stuff itself, which is weird.

:'''2000s'''
:[Cueball has his arms raised in the air.]
: Cueball: There are ''so'' many types of RNA. It's doing ''so'' much stuff.

:'''2020s'''
:Cueball: Life is a seething mass of RNA that sometimes uses DNA to take notes.
:Person out of frame: What do the proteins do?
:Cueball: Errands for RNA.

{{comic discussion}}

explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

Talk:3063: Planet Definitions

3056: RNA