2007-07-26 00:18:18 · 14 answers · asked by ♥cutedog_08♥ 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
Not ever and especially not tomorrow, July 27th, therefore!
I think I know what this is about. You sound as though you have received a text message or an e-mail telling you that Pluto will be as bright and as large as the Moon on July 27th and are wondering if that can possibly be true.
Well, you are right to find this suspicious. Not least because of the way it is circulating, There is nothing in the newspapers, or on TV, and you would expect to have seen something by now if it were true and were happening tomorrow!
Even Supernovas need a few weeks to reach maximum brightness, so a planet that cannot be seen today is not going to go "Pow!" Flash!" "Wow!!!" tomorrow night ...
THE POSITION IS THIS
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!?
What is in circulation is a totally muddled
rehash of a hoax e-mail 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.
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!
2007-07-26 03:04:09 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
From Earth, Pluto at its brightest is a magnitude 13 object, and only objects magnitude 6 or brighter are visible to the naked eye. That makes Pluto several hundred times dimmer than anything anyone can see.
2007-07-26 01:08:19 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 0⤋
If the earth veers off its normal orbit and takes the direction of Pluto, and providing, further, that we are still alive by that time, living on borrowed time in our self-sustained bubbles of cities, there is every possibility we could see it with our naked eyes.
Aref
2007-07-29 23:21:39 · answer #3 · answered by Aref H4 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It takes a powerful telescope just to see it as a small, dim dot. There is no chance of seeing it from Earth with the naked eye.
2007-07-26 00:24:49 · answer #4 · answered by Labsci 7 · 5⤊ 1⤋
Not unless some genetically engineers a naked eye with a really powerful zoom lens!
2007-07-26 01:06:15 · answer #5 · answered by dansinger61 6 · 2⤊ 2⤋
yes, if you traveled close enough to it, but it will never been seen by the naked eye from earth
2007-07-26 00:20:39 · answer #6 · answered by an_articulate_soul 4 · 6⤊ 1⤋
No,at least from Earth.
2007-07-26 00:57:10 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 0⤋
perhaps when the natural order of things cease to exist, whichis never!
2007-07-26 01:53:17 · answer #8 · answered by godshandmaiden 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes, in close proximity to Mikey and Goofy.
2007-07-26 00:25:21 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 4⤋
Not from Earth it can't. Not ever.
2007-07-26 02:53:33 · answer #10 · answered by campbelp2002 7 · 2⤊ 1⤋