Re: Likeliness of Pluto discovery

From: doktorf (doktorf_at_tiac.net)
Date: 02/26/05 

Date: 26 Feb 2005 08:58:28 -0800

Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto by tusing a blink microscope to examine
photographic plates. The discovery was not only probable, but
inevitable with the only variable being the date. 1930 is a pretty
early date to find a tiny KBO, but it was bound to be spotted sooner or
later.
There are a couple of things about Pluto. The original estimates of
its size were hugely magnified. If you look in older text books , it is
generally given a mass around that of Mars. Today, astronomers assign
to Pluto and its sattelite Charon a *cumulative* mass slightly smaller
than Earth's Moon.
   What might have been interesting would have been if a number of
KBO's has been discovered around 1930 instead of just one. I think this
might have really reshaped astronomy in the 20'th century. Say Ixion
in 1929, Varuna, Sedna and Quaoar and perhaps a few other large objects
 the next year and perhaps not Pluto and Charon until some years later.
It would have gone a long way toward establishing them as a seperate
class of objects before any assumptions about their being planets could
develop.
            -Seth Deitch

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