I can see why they no longer call it a planet, what’s the cutoff for asteroid size?
It is still a dwarf planet. Basically when it hits hydrostatic equilibrium, i.e. when it’s round, it is considered a dwarf planet. More here
As a former Plutonian, I can confirm it’s small, that’s why we immigrated to Earth. And fucking cold!
Stop posting pictures of my family, they are very shy!!!
This picture is inaccurate, Pluto is actually much farther away.
No it’s just really small
Telephoto shot, using a 1e50 mm lens.
if anyone wants to do the math, how far away from the sun would the camera have needed to be to take such a photo?
Apparent scale is inverse linear, i.e., proportional to 1 / distance. If we want the apparent scale of two objects to be about 90% accurate to their actual relative scale, their relative distances to the camera can’t be more than 10% different. Pluto being 40-ish astronomical from Earth, you’d want to shoot from about 400 AU. Voyager I should be in prime position circa 2140.
The Alice Springs Pluto Observatory has opened considerably under-budget.
Pluto is still a sphere, this is an unfair comparison because Pluto hasn’t been unwrapped
Fun fact: the surface area of Pluto is only about 4% larger than Russia.
So thats why Russia wanted to expand
It’s actually 4π*(0.5*(length-of-australia))^2 bigger than that.
Pluto unboxing video.
I have this Tshirt
I get groans
No shit? Wow, it’s amazing that we were even able to find it.
Even more amazing that it was found in the era it was. People were pouring over the skies looking for the next big planet, and instead they found this little guy.
There are still some orbital dynamics suggestions that something large and dark is lurking out there – an ice giant. But it’s still largely conjecture. It’d be interesting to see how they define it should they find something very large (say Neptune mass), but it hasn’t cleared its orbit. Is it a planet or not? :D
They only found it because it’s more like a binary dwarf planet system than a planet/moon system, so the telescopes were able to pick up light reflected from both Pluto and Charron, while Pluto alone might have not been bright enough.
Actually 🤓 it was James Cook who found Australia and he didn’t go there by ski but by ship and he didn’t find one little guy but exterminated a whole indigenous population
Ah shit, a switcheroo!
That’s an avocado pit and you know it
introscene for the next mecha anime confirmed
First they came for Pluto’s planethood.
Next they’re coming for Australia’s continenthood.
When they came for Pluto, I said nothing because I wasn’t a planet
When they came for Australia, I said nothing because I wasn’t a continent
When they came for Bielefeld, I said nothing because I wasn’t a city
When they came for me, there was no one left to say anything– Martin Niemöller
Hey wtf put Pluto back to where it belongs. Do you have any idea how bad this is for the world economics???
Would the owner of a beige 1930 dwarf planet please move it, or we will have it towed.
I think a TARDIS can do that.
Still can’t unsee Pluto(the dog) on Pluto
And thats why you’ll never be a real planet!
Heresy! Australia will always be a planet.
No! Austria will never be a planet nor continent. It is a white, European country and I’m willing to die on that hill!
Absolute size isn’t really in the criteria for a planet though. Pluto isn’t a planet because it shares its orbit with lots of other icy bodies in the Kuiper belt.
Exactly. That’s also why Jupiter, which shares its orbit with thousands of asteroids, isn’t a planet either.
Do you mean the Trojans? They’re excluded from the mass calculation of ‘clearing the neighbourhood’ because they’re in a resonant orbit - their orbit is a consequence of Jupiter’s mass.
I don’t know. I don’t think we should make excuses for Jupiter just because of its size. Pluto’s doing the best it can. Could any of us do any better, so far out from the sun?
Jupiter was declared too big to fail.
Jupiter does throw its weight around a bit too much.
Thanks to your comments, I went looking at more about Jupiter’s influence on us and read that most of the other planets are more in line with Jupiter’s orbital plane than the Sun’s equatorial plane (which sounds impressive, but maybe only makes complete sense since the planets would have all initially formed from the same disk). Anyway, thanks
That’s really interesting!
I just discovered a theory about the cause of the ‘late heavy bombardment’, which is thought to have delivered water to earth via comets.Essentially the gas giants all orbited much closer, but Jupiter and Saturn got into resonance and flung Uranus and Neptune way out (and Saturn too). Uranus and Neptune flew out into the path of a heap of ice, and their gravity pulled the ice into an orbit that collided with the terrestrial planets.
Honestly never had a clue. Thanks for the share.
What is Pluto doing so close to Australia?
That shouldn’t be allowed. Someone tell it to go back to it’s usual orbit, this is not on.
It’s their payback for that whole “clears its orbit” business.
They’re using it to cool up Australia
You didn’t know they had a thing? It lasted until Australia found out Pluto wasn’t really a planet.
Fuck off Pluto, we’re full!
