Is it true that Pluto will be brightest in the night sky starting July?

Question

Someone forwarded a text message to me and I just want to know if it's true.

"Planet Pluto will be brightest in the night sky starting July. It will look as large as the fullmoon to the naked eye. This will culminate on July 27 when Pluto comes within 34.65M miles of the earth. Be sure to watch the sky on July 27, 12:30 am. It will look like the earth has two moons. The next time Pluto may come this close is in 2287. Share this with you friends and loved ones as NO ONE ALIVE TODAY will ever see it again."

Answer 1

You are right to be suspicious.

NraoKid is his usual rude and abrasive self, putting people down as ever, but I happen to think your publishing the text you received was a public-spirited act that helps us all to guide others who will ask similar questions but don't think to tell us the source of their (mis-)information. Thanks for doing that.

Pluto is never visible to the naked eye, as its apparent magnitude averages about 15 (peak brightness 13) and the dimmest stars that are visible to the naked eye are magnitude 6 (on a clear cloudless night with no moon and no street lights to cause light pollution) which is about 4,000 times as bright as Pluto is at magnitude 15!

And a Full Moon at magnitude - 12.6 is about 40 million times as bright as a magnitude 6 star! And therefore about 160 billion times (40 million x 4,000) as bright as Pluto! Something not quite right here, isn't there!?

This text message is a totally muddled
rehash of a hoax e-mail in circulation which has been seen every summer since 2003, which asserts that MARS is about to be spectacular and names AUGUST 27th as the day it will be at its brightest.

i.e. some bumbling twit of a hoaxer has got the wrong planet and the wrong month and the wrong year! Can't be much more wrong than that!

Mars is not going to be particularly bright in August this year, anyway; it will become slightly brighter than Sirius from December 12th to 31st. Its closest approaches to earth are 26 months apart i.e. August 27th 2003, followed by October 30th 2005 and December 18th 2007. Next rendezvous: February 2010. And yes, there will be a very close approach of MARS in 2287. Not of Pluto,

There was an idiot on here a few days ago who tried to tell us all that these Pluto-bright-as-the-Moon occasions were cyclical: once every 280 years, one this year, next one in 2287, and the previous one was in 1727!

Unfortunately he didn't seem to know that Pluto wasn't discovered till 1930 and that in 1727 neither Uranus (1781) nor Neptune (1846) had been discovered either!

(That's how much scientific knowledge these hoaxers have! It is laughable.)

So whoever wrote to you suggesting Pluto is about to become a beacon illuminating the night skies and be as bright as the Moon was telling porkies and scarcely credible ones at that. Most people know that Pluto is a long way off and rather small and under-sized, so any suggestion it will suddenly become very bright will be bound to sound dubious to anyone who is sent this.

For the record, Pluto is smaller than the Moon and averages about 40 AU from earth. The Moon is 1/400 AU from earth. So Pluto is 16,000 times as far away. How can a smaller object that is so much further away possibly be as bright as the Moon!?

If they are going to try and hoax people, they might try and make the story sound plausible, at least!

You might like to compare the text you have received with the Mars hoax text, collected by Snopes.com to confirm it is a direct crib of it, same distance quoted, same unusual way of writing million and same time of night to go viewing!

Answer 2

Whoever sent this got it all wrong. Pluto is normally at 14th magnitude, and that demands at least a 6 or 8-inch telescope at a very dark site on a moonless and clear night to see. Even then, it's a point of light that just barely moves from night to night. It certainly will never become the brightest object in the night sky unless somehow it was sent on a collision course with Earth. Pluto's orbit will never take it near the Earth, barring something like a black hole passing though the solar system and disrupting all the planet's orbits as it goes. As it stands now, and has remained so for at least hundreds of millions of years, Pluto is locked in a 2:3 resonance with Neptune. That means for every two revolutions Pluto makes around the Sun, Neptune makes three. This keeps Pluto in it's present orbit and it never can collide with Neptune. In fact, it comes much closer to Uranus than it ever could to Neptune. Most of the time it's outside of Neptune's orbit around the Sun. Whoever send this message doesn't have his astronomy straight.

Answer 3

Let's be kind here, people. kroiwa34 is just asking if the message is true or not, not making the claim, and figured that this would be a good place to get the answer. Not everyone is as knowledgeable about astronomy as the typical answerer here, and it's a sign of intelligence to me that the question is being asked, "Is it true?" There is, after all, no such thing as a stupid question. And, no, I'm not just sucking up for the 10 points. In fact, I ask that you don't pick this as Best Answer.

kroiwa34, I think you already have your answer-- Pluto is much too far away, and much too small, even if it wasn't that far away, to appear in the night sky as large as the Moon. Some of the answers that say this is an old message about a close approach of Mars fail to mention that, even then, Mars wouldn't have been able to appear as large or as bright as the Moon, so the message was not even correct then.

Thanks for asking!

Answer 4

No that is sadly not true. None of the other planets will ever be that close to Earth to "look as large as the fullmoon to the naked eye." Even now we can bearly get a burry speck of an image of Pluto.

However, it is true that Pluto might be the Last Oasis for Life in our solar system. The link below will explaine that, its good reading.

Answer 5

Pluto will NEVER come that close to earth...it will NEVER be visible with the naked eye. Whoever started this scam should be brave enough to explain how Pluto can come that close to earth. I'd definitely will face this person and prove that this will never be true, even if that person who started this crazy thought lives forever. What a shame for that person...study more so you can see clearly!

Answer 6

No.

Pluto NEVER gets that close to Earth.

This sounds like a mixed up version of the story about Mars, which itself is a totally wrong and mixed up story about the close opposition of Mars that happened on August 27, 2003.

Answer 7

Oh sheesh, now some moron has substituted Pluto for what was the closest approach of Mars some 4 years ago. Indeed, Mars was very bright then, but it was still just a "star" and did not appear as large as the moon.

Answer 8

ahh..so,someone also forwarded you a message...i also..i do not know that person, just texted me...at first, of course, say that was unbelievable! i was once quite confused, but then, i didn't believe it in the last place because pluto is sooo far...well, i just wish so that that may happen...i want to see planets or stars or anything around the universe because i haven't experienced using telescope before...until now....uhmm..i have tried once but not that exciting becuase there are many students in our line, waiting...they just want you to take a glance...then, next! oh! that was science camp, i remembered. if i'm not mistaken, they focused the telescope on jupiter, of course excited...but then, hours passed...i'm so sleepy, then just a glanced! gosh! so i was just get contented on internet pictures, videos and other updates...how sad, but nope, it's not true...

Answer 9

You can't see Pluto but with a powerful telescope anyway. Let's see, 34.65 million miles is awfully close. Pluto is actually over 3.75 BILLION miles from the Sun.

Answer 10

wtf? Pluto has never been visible with the naked eye from Earth. And never will. You would need an extremely powerful telescope to even barely make it out!

Looks like another one of those scam messages... were they selling anything?

We'd be in a whole heap of trouble if Pluto was as close to us as the Moon!