quasi-planet

English

Noun

quasi-planet (plural quasi-planets)

1. (astronomy) a body comparable to a planet, but not a planet, such as a dwarf planet or a planetary-mass moon
   • 1957, [1623], Stillman Drake, Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo, page 253:

     I am not so sure that in order to make a comet a quasi-planet, and as such to deck it out in the attributes of other planets, it is sufficient for Sarsi or his teacher to regard it as one and so name it. If heir opinions and their voices have the power of calling into existence the things they name, then I beg them to do me the favor of naming a lot of the old hardware I have about my house, "gold." But, names aside, what attribute induced them to regard the comet as a quasi-planet for a time?

   • 1992, Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, volume 45, page 257:

     Titan, the largest satellite of Saturn, has a dense N₂–CH₄ atmosphere rich in organic compounds. ... This quasi planet appears as a natural laboratory to study chemical evolution toward organic systems in a planetary environment

   • 2004, The New Book of Popular Science: Earth sciences, energy, environmental sciences, Grolier, page 11:

     the tidal theory assumes that the Earth was first a gas, then a liquid, and that the quasi-planet finally cooled enough to develop a solid crust.

   • 2007, Carole Douglas, Cat in a Quicksilver Caper, page 46:

     the hotel exterior is ringed by a giant neon solar system. Mars, Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn, and that goofy little outer quasi-planet, Pluto, shine luminescent red, blue, green, pink, white, and yellow.

   • 2011, William Lazarus, Mark Sullivan, Comparative Religion For Dummies, Penguin, published 2013, page 287:

     Pluto is the same guy in Roman myths. That's why the dark, distant quasi planet in our solar system bears his name.

   • 2015 July 15, Tom Service, “Sounds of the solar system: probing Pluto's predicted score”, in The Guardian:

     what might Pluto sound like? ... we will have to wait a little longer until scientists can do the same with the littlest quasi-planet in our solar system, or the biggest rock in the Kuiper belt, however you choose to define it.

Translations

a planetoid

Japanese: 準惑星 (ja) (じゅんわくせい, junwakusei)