Hubble finds Xena larger than Pluto.
Space Telescope Hubble launched by NASA has clearly seen
the tenth planet
currently nicknamed “Xena”. Hubble
observations on the 9th and 10th December 2005 measured
diameter of Xena as 1490 miles with an
accuracy of 60
miles. The diameter of Pluto on the other hand is 1422
miles.
Mr. Mike Brown, planetary scientist at the California
Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California claimed
that only Hubble could make such a measurement of the
actual diameter of Xena with clean visible light.
It is strange how science can measure the diameter of an
object such as Xena, which is 10 billion miles away from
Earth with so much accuracy. It can be gauged how small the
10th planet looks from Earth when it occupies only 1.5
pixels across in Hubble’s view.