Posted on 07/13/2015 12:09:50 PM PDT by LibWhacker
NASA’s New Horizons mission has answered one of the most basic questions about Pluto—its size.
Mission scientists have found Pluto to be 1,473 miles (2,370 kilometers) in diameter, somewhat larger than many prior estimates. Images acquired with the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) were used to make this determination. This result confirms what was already suspected: Pluto is larger than all other known solar system objects beyond the orbit of Neptune.
“The size of Pluto has been debated since its discovery in 1930. We are excited to finally lay this question to rest,” said mission scientist Bill McKinnon, Washington University, St. Louis.
Pluto’s newly estimated size means that its density is slightly lower than previously thought, and the fraction of ice in its interior is slightly higher. Also, the lowest layer of Pluto’s atmosphere, called the troposphere, is shallower than previously believed.
Measuring Pluto’s size has been a decades-long challenge due to complicating factors from its atmosphere. Its largest moon Charon lacks a substantial atmosphere, and its diameter was easier to determine using ground-based telescopes. New Horizons observations of Charon confirm previous estimates of 751 miles (1208 km) kilometers) across
LORRI has also zoomed in on two of Pluto’s smaller moons, Nix and Hydra.
“We knew from the time we designed our flyby that we would only be able to study the small moons in detail for just a few days before closest approach,” said New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado. “Now, deep inside Pluto’s sphere of influence, that time has come.”
Nix and Hydra were discovered using the Hubble Space Telescope in 2005. Even to Hubble, they appeared as points of light, and that’s how they looked to New Horizons until the final week of its approach to Pluto. Now, the latest LORRI images show the two diminutive satellites not as pinpoints, but as moons seen well enough to measure their sizes. Nix is estimated to be about 20 miles (about 35 kilometers) across, while Hydra is roughly 30 miles (roughly 45 kilometers) across. These sizes lead mission scientists to conclude that their surfaces are quite bright, possibly due to the presence of ice.
What about Pluto’s two smallest moons, Kerberos and Styx? Smaller and fainter than Nix and Hydra, they are harder to measure. Mission scientists should be able to determine their sizes with observations New Horizons will make during the flyby and will transmit to Earth at a later date.
And that's without bathroom breaks or stops at Taco Bell. No wonder astronauts wear adult diapers when driving long distances.
Hmmm... does this mean that Pluto could be upgraded - back to being a "planet"?
Right, I’ve never agreed with the reclassification. It has every appearance that the IAU (Int’l Astronomical Union) adopted a resolution defining ‘planet’ that was specifically drawn up to exclude Pluto. It stinks. It’s how liberals work.
That said, size wasn’t one of the criteria. The critical clause in the resolution, as far as Pluto is concerned, says that in order for an object to be a planet, it must have swept up most of the other objects in its orbit. The Earth has a mass that is over a million times greater than the combined mass of all the other things in Earth’s orbit around the Sun. Pluto’s mass only accounts for a few percent of all the other things in its orbit. But like I said, that criterion is a totally made up one designed specficially to exclude Pluto, imho.
Lol
Thanks LibWhacker, extra to APoD.
Ah - thanks a bunch. It’s all clear to me now.
8^)
Bigger than Mickey, but not as big as Goofy.
Lol, now I could put up with that for 5,700 years!
The student dust counter, an instrument on board the New Horizons spacecraft, was also renamed Venetia after her.
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