Re: "Pluto Now Called a Plutoid"

Erik Max Francis wrote:
Yay, here we go again ...

There's already a class of object called "Plutinos", which overlaps significantly (though apparently not completely) with these Plutoids. That's likely to be confusing.

One particularly odd feature of this new classification is the absolute magnitude criterion. A Plutoid has to have an absolute magnitude brighter than +1. I imagine it'd be possible to have an object that's a Plutoid when its atmosphere is frozen out as a bright layer of frost during the outer part of its orbit and then loses Plutoid status (but not dwarf planet status) when it approaches perihelion and the dark organic crust is exposed. :)
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Relevant Pages

  • Re: "Pluto Now Called a Plutoid"
    ... A Plutoid has to have an absolute magnitude brighter than +1. ... I imagine it'd be possible to have an object that's a Plutoid when its atmosphere is frozen out as a bright layer of frost during the outer part of its orbit and then loses Plutoid status when it approaches perihelion and the dark organic crust is exposed. ... reading that the absolute magnitude criterion is just a crude "first pass" used to determine whether an object should go through the Plutino naming process, since it's easier to determine absolute magnitude than it is to determine mass and diameter and roundness. ...
    (rec.arts.sf.science)
  • Re: "Pluto Now Called a Plutoid"
    ... magnitude criterion. ... A Plutoid has to have an absolute magnitude ... Plutoid when its atmosphere is frozen out as a bright layer of frost ...
    (rec.arts.sf.science)