Honestly never had a clue. Thanks for the share.
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
And thats why you’ll never be a real planet!
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 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.
Jupiter was declared too big to fail.
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!
Still, the surface area is much bigger. Pluto is a real continent
Discreetly insulting both Australia and Pluto in one sentence! Absolutely love this; will share it with all my Australia and Plutonian friends! If Earth gets attacked, it’s not my fault, but yours :'P
If Australia attacks Earth you’ll know you’ve been attacked.
Australians can’t attack Earth, they’d fall right up into the sky without some reverse-reverse-gravity system.
What is this, a planet for ants?!
It’s a close-up shot; the planet in this photo is actually much bigger than Australia.
Then again it could be super close and the size of a potato.
Potatoes aren’t usually blue
They are if they are moving towards you really fast!
Extremely venomous ants.
Still can’t unsee Pluto(the dog) on Pluto
Take that King Flippy Nips!
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.
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!
It’s their payback for that whole “clears its orbit” business.
Small little fucker, no wonder it’s not a planet anymore.
Straya’s never been a planet, mate.
Yeah, but it is a pretty big island.
Might as well have been. 😉
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.
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!!!
Wow, Pluto has approximately the same surface area as Russia
And now putin starts pumping out propaganda that pluto used to be russian
That’s an avocado pit and you know it
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.