the planets are so far away and so small that if you stood on the planet, you could block out the sun completely with a needle head. it's part of the reason they couldn't see them until bigger and better telescopes were built
Technology keeps getting more and more advanced. I am curious to see exactly what scientists especially people at NASA will try to do. But more importantly, what they are successful in.
Yes the reason why we can see those maybe plaints now and we could not see them before is because of our advances in technology. And I believe that in the future that we will for sure find out if those things out there are really plaints or just really big rocks. And who knows there might even be life on Pluto who really know till we get there.
The issue of planets beyond Pluto is not one of confirming them. We know the "rocks" are out there. It's a question of definition. What exactly is a "planet". Before you say "anything orbiting the sun", consider this... (1) asteroids orbit the sun, are they planets? (2)comets orbit the sun, are they planets? etc etc etc....
well if i had to create a definition for a planet it would be; a hunk of rock or ball gas of at least ____(enter number here)______km in diameter that orbits primarily the sun (so you don't have any moons being considered as planets)
that is one of the things that we are trying to find out with this mission to Pluto. Scientists are trying to figure out what those numbers are that u mentioned. And once they figure that out we will be able to classify if Pluto is a planet or just a rock and same thing goes for the other 2 rocks past Pluto.
How would they do that...measure the diameter of Pluto? Wouldn't that be hard...haha I don't think that they would have to walk the whole length of Pluto and measure it. But how else would they be able to do it?