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Was Pluto Discovered on JULY 14, 2015 ?

07-16-15

Because Pluto is a planet (or a dwarf planet) it requires reflected light from the Sun to view it through a telescope, which is true for any planet.  This is in contrast to the stars and galaxies that emit light directly.  Reflected light is often only a percentage of the incoming light that strikes an object to begin with. 

Pluto's size is about two-thirds the diameter of Earth's moon and over 3 billion miles from the Sun.  The amount of visible light from the Sun reaching Pluto diffuses according to the inverse square of the distance, known as the inverse-square law for light:

At Pluto’s distance from the Sun the intensity of light is quite diminished.  Now, because of Pluto’s surface, only sixty percent of the light that reaches it is ever reflected to view from a telescope.  Apply the above equation a second time with 60 % reduced illumination for another 3 billion miles to view Pluto with a telescope from Earth.  Even when viewed thru a Space Telescope such as Hubble the result is the same since the Hubble Space Telescope is considered the same distance from Pluto as Earth in relativistic distances. ¹

It’s even considered a miracle that Pluto was ever spotted from Earth, and that not too much else was ever spotted beyond Pluto as far as another planet (explaining Pluto’s confusion with dwarf planets versus being a standard planet). 

The event of a spacecraft flying close by to Pluto with scientific equipment (including low-light level zoom cameras) introduces a whole new perspective, and explains the significance of the New Horizons voyage.  One is essentially on top of the object that was so far away, and the distance that reduced the light illumination by a squared power is now cut in half.  Because of these factors, it becomes the opinion that the flyby event of a hard-to-see object such as Pluto reveals so much more that it can be considered the actual time of discovery. 

  

1. The Hubble Space Telescope is in low-earth orbit approximately 350 miles above the surface.