kraftiekortie wrote:
I never thought we'd get this sort of view of Pluto in my lifetime!
I wonder if astronomers will reconsider Pluto's status as a "dwarf planet." Especially if they measure it, and find that the diameter is 4,000 miles or thereabouts.
Do you think this could possibly happen?
HIGHLY unlikely that the astronomy community will reinstate a radically bigger size for Pluto.
They might change its diameter by a few dozen miles, but they wont declare that the 1470 mile wide sphere is as big as Mars (4000 miles). They've been zeroing in on the object for a long time, and pretty much know its size.
Also there is another issue: Eris.
In the Nineties they discovered Eris orbiting way beyond Pluto which is a hair smaller than Pluto but is 27 percent more massive than Pluto- making Pluto the tenth most massive (but still the nineth biggest) object known to be orbiting the Sun. So if you reinstate Pluto as a "planet" you might have to also promote Eris to planet status. And then Pluto would no longer have the distinction of being the "last" planet at the edge of the Solar System because Eris is three times the distance from the Sun as Pluto.