Small Bodies, Simple Graph
The image above accompanies Steve Soter’s Scientific American article about the new definition of planets. The image of the solar system deals with the typical issues of scale and two-dimensionality adequately enough, but I really like the little graph just below the center. It shows Soter’s proposed μ values for various solar system bodies, which gives a more mathematical expression to the concept of a planet “clearing its orbit.” (Note that the scale of the bar graph is exponential!)
Now compare the graph to Figure 3 in the astro-ph version of the article. Whereas the astro-ph version uses a standard scientific convention (plotting two quantities and revealing μ as a diagonal line on the plot), the Scientific American version translates the concept into simple visual vernacular. Excellent work.