The newest trans-Neptunian object may be twice the size of Pluto. "Someone should have found this sooner," according to the director of the Minor Planet Center.
This is very cool! I wonder if this would show up on any of the photographs taken by Percival Lowell now that people know what to look for and where to look.
Now they're saying it's only 70% of Pluto's diameter, which I suppose is good for those who are emotionally attached to the idea of 9 planets, since they still have some basis for continuing to call Pluto a planet. All the have to do is draw the line at 2390 km (or, so as not to be completely transparent, at 2000 km), and say that anything above that counts as a planet, and anything below it doesn't. Until the next really big plutino shows up.
Ceres was a planet, for a short while, until it was discovered that it was but one of many asteroids, and it counted as a planet then so would many of the others. So it was dropped from the roster. Now the same thing is happening to Pluto, and I don't see why it should get better treatment than Ceres, just because it was a planet long enough to get into the encyclopaedias and textbooks.
If this new object had turned out to be bigger than Pluto, then I'd say that was the last straw, and it would be impossible for anyone to keep a straight face while calling Pluto a planet. As it is, it remains possible, if barely.
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Ceres was a planet, for a short while, until it was discovered that it was but one of many asteroids, and it counted as a planet then so would many of the others. So it was dropped from the roster. Now the same thing is happening to Pluto, and I don't see why it should get better treatment than Ceres, just because it was a planet long enough to get into the encyclopaedias and textbooks.
If this new object had turned out to be bigger than Pluto, then I'd say that was the last straw, and it would be impossible for anyone to keep a straight face while calling Pluto a planet. As it is, it remains possible, if barely.