this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2024
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Astronomy
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Even more amazing that it was found in the era it was. People were pouring over the skies looking for the next big planet, and instead they found this little guy.
There are still some orbital dynamics suggestions that something large and dark is lurking out there -- an ice giant. But it's still largely conjecture. It'd be interesting to see how they define it should they find something very large (say Neptune mass), but it hasn't cleared its orbit. Is it a planet or not? :D
Actually ๐ค it was James Cook who found Australia and he didn't go there by ski but by ship and he didn't find one little guy but exterminated a whole indigenous population
Ah shit, a switcheroo!
They only found it because it's more like a binary dwarf planet system than a planet/moon system, so the telescopes were able to pick up light reflected from both Pluto and Charron, while Pluto alone might have not been bright enough.