[tortoise]

I had read it was smaller in an earlier article.

A lot of people are becoming confused by this. There were three massive objects officially reported as discovered in the Kuiper belt in the last day or so. Two are slightly smaller than Pluto at last estimate, and one is unambiguously larger.

Because these were so close together (which is not a coincidence -- internal politics at play), people are confused about what has actually been discovered and many are confusing identical sounding reports with being identical reports..

[plangent]

The size of an object in the solar system object can be inferred by its brightness, just as the size of a faraway light bulb can be calculated if one knows its wattage, he explained.

My 100 watt lightbulb is brighter than my 40 watt lightbulb, but they are the same size. Maybe I'm just a dim bulb this am. Is this a new way of thinking in the physical sciences?