> Icy world Charon is 1,200 kilometers across. That makes Pluto’s largest moon only about 1/10th the size of planet Earth but a whopping 1/2 the diameter of Pluto itself.
Uh, Charon is 1/10th the diameter of Earth, and only 1/8th the *size* of Pluto (1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2).
After seeing these bodies, I wonder if a lot of experts are rethinking the “dwarf planet” label. With an obviously active geology (no craters), in some ways Pluto has more of a claim on being a planet than does Mars. Those images were shocking to many.
Your correction only compounds the confusion of the quotation, which refers to the diameter of Pluto, and the size of the earth.
The statement that Charon is 1/2 the diameter of Pluto is correct to reasonable accuracy, but its diameter ( as you state,) not its size, is concommittaly about 1/10 that of earth.
Gosh, I hope I got that right!