It was only in 1969 (nice) that fungi officially became its own separate kingdom.

  • @[email protected]
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    73 months ago

    Similarly, “a planet” can be understood in technical or colloquial context which changes the meaning. It can have a specific meaning or a vague flexible meaning, just like with berries.

    BTW raspberries are my favorite berries… sort of. Watermelons are pretty good too.

    • @[email protected]
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      33 months ago

      Actually planet doesn’t have any hard set definition, we kind of just do it case by case because its damn near impossible to come up with a rigid definition that doesn’t suddenly classify some planets as moons or some moons as planets or create weird situations in which an object can switch between the two.

      • wanderer
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        43 months ago

        The International Astronomical Union (IAU) defined in August 2006 that, in the Solar System, a planet is a celestial body that:

        1. is in orbit around the Sun,
        2. has sufficient mass to assume hydrostatic equilibrium (a nearly round shape), and
        3. has “cleared the neighbourhood” around its orbit.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAU_definition_of_planet

        • @[email protected]
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          53 months ago

          And in that same article:

          It has been argued that the definition is problematic because it depends on the location of the body: if a Mars-sized body were discovered in the inner Oort cloud, it would not have enough mass to clear out a neighbourhood that size and meet criterion 3. The requirement for hydrostatic equilibrium (criterion 2) is also universally treated loosely as simply a requirement for roundedness; Mercury is not actually in hydrostatic equilibrium, but is explicitly included by the IAU definition as a planet

          • Draconic NEO
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            22 months ago

            That’s not even addressing the issue of rogue planets which were ejected from their star system. Many estimates say they outnumber the stars. Obviously when a planet is ejected it doesn’t just disintegrate but by that poor definition it’s no longer a ““planet””, so it’s clearly a problematic definition.