It looks as though another chapter is about to be added to the Pluto debate. When Michael E. Brown (Caltech) discovered the dwarf planet Eris in 2005, he was convinced that this Kuiper Belt object was larger than Pluto. In fact, he believes that his discovery may have lead to the demise of Pluto’s status as a planet, as he describes in his book How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming.
However, recent measurements made during a stellar occultation reveal that Eris doesn’t quite measure up to Brown’s predictions. Alain Maury at the San Pedro de Atacama telescope in Chile and Bruno Sicardy of the Paris Observatory intend to soon publish their findings in the magazine Nature, revealing Eris’ exact size.
This doesn’t quite close the debate, though. Several scientists, such as Eliot F. Young, from Southwest Research Institute, have pointed out that Pluto’s exact size remains unknown because some of its surface features and its atmosphere remain a mystery.
So, who is bigger and better? And what other “planets” may lurk in the Kuiper Belt? Stay tuned.
For more information regarding the recent Eris/Pluto debate, check out these articles:
http://www.metrolic.com/eris-plutos-killer-156228
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2011-01-12-dwarfplanets12_CV_N.htm
http://news.discovery.com/space/pluto-might-be-bigger-but-eris-is-more-massive.html
