Dictionary

dwarf planetary en · ADJ

Etymology

Blend of dwarf planet + planetary. By surface analysis, dwarf planet + -ary.

Meanings

1. (not-comparable) Of or relating to dwarf planets.
   • One planet in a system, third one out from the orbit-star. While its planetary brethren (and dwarf planetary brethren, baby siblings in an increasingly strained metaphor) develop Novelties like rings or Great Red Sports, this world develops the strangest novelty of all. / Life. 2010, Marcus D’Ambrose, Douglas Palermo, Noel Rogers, Heroes and Hierophants, Bloomington, Ind.: iUniverse, →ISBN, page 275:
   • Pluto failed to dominate its orbit and thus was not a planet. This reclassification had little effect on scientific practice. Scientists studying Pluto refer to themselves as planetary scientists (not dwarf planetary scientists). 2016, Lisa Messeri, Placing Outer Space: An Earthly Ethnography of Other Worlds, Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, →ISBN:
   • In Chapter 7, “How Do Emotions and Attitudes Influence Science Understanding?,” we challenge the notion of science as a cold, dispassionate enterprise and show how learning about science involves the full range of emotions. Consider the overwhelmingly negative reaction of many members of the public when Pluto was demoted to dwarf planetary status. 2021, Gale M. Sinatra, Barbara K. Hofer, Science Denial: Why It Happens and What to Do About It, New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 16:
   • Figure 8.8. The scale of the planetary and dwarf planetary regions of the solar system. 2023, Martin Beech, Mind the Gap: The Labyrinthine Story of Planetary Orbits, Mathematics, and the Titius-Bode Rule, World Scientific, →ISBN, page 230:
   • By 2012 the distinction between our solar system’s inner rocky planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, and the asteroid belt) and its outer gas and ice giants (where most of the nonsolar mass resides) had also been drawn more definitively and generically, with a second asteroid-like cluster, the Kuiper Belt (undesignated in 1988), added to demarcate a planetary (or “dwarf planetary”) sphere beyond Neptune. 2014, Richard Grossinger, The Night Sky: Soul and Cosmos; The Physics and Metaphysics of the Stars and Planets, updated and expanded edition, Berkeley, Calif.: North Atlantic Books, →ISBN:
   • […] because NASA supports “planetary” astronomy but has no division for “dwarf planetary” astronomy. 2009, Laurence A. Marschall, Stephen P. Maran, Pluto Confidential: An Insider Account of the Ongoing Battles over the Status of Pluto, Dallas, Tex.: BenBella Books, →ISBN, page 186:

Forms