NYT: Planet or Not, Pluto Now Has Far-Out Rival (new planet Xena?)

[DeepModem Mom]

Planet or Not, Pluto Now Has Far-Out Rival
By KENNETH CHANG and DENNIS OVERBYE
Published: July 30, 2005
Add a tenth planet to the solar system - or possibly subtract one.


Astronomers announced yesterday that they had found a lump of rock and ice that was larger than Pluto and the farthest known object in the solar system. The discovery will probably rekindle debate over the definition of "planet" and whether Pluto still merits the designation.

The new object - as yet unnamed, but temporarily known as 2003 UB313 - is now 9 billion miles away from the Sun, or 97 times as far away as Earth and about three times Pluto's current distance from the Sun. Its 560-year elliptical orbit brings it as close as 3.3 billion miles. Pluto's orbit ranges from 2.7 billion miles to 4.6 billion.

The astronomers do not have an exact size for the new planet, but its brightness and distance tell them that it is larger than Pluto, the smallest of the nine known planets....

***

The discovery was made Jan. 8 at Palomar Observatory in California. (Michael E. Brown, a professor of planetary astronomy at the California Institute of Technology) and the other members of the team - Chadwick A. Trujillo of the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii and David L. Rabinowitz of Yale University- then found that they had, unknowingly, taken images of the planet, using the observatory's 48-inch telescope, as far back as 2003....

***

Informally, the astronomers have been calling it Xena after the television series about a Greek warrior princess, which was popular when the astronomers began their systematic sweep of the sky in 2000Informally, the astronomers have been calling it Xena after the television series about a Greek warrior princess, which was popular when the astronomers began their systematic sweep of the sky in 2000....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/30/science/30planet.html?hp&ex=1122696000&en=8500b2cc7e8e63c0&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[Ian David]

1. Goofy. We should call it Goofy. n/t

[LostInAnomie]

2. What ever happened to Sedna?

I thought that was the tenth planet.

[DeepModem Mom]

3. Sedna! From the article --

"Last year, the same team announced the discovery of a distant body they named Sedna, which, until the latest discovery, had held the title of farthest known object in the solar system. But Sedna, smaller than Pluto, is on a far stranger, 10,500-year orbit that takes it as far out as 84 billion miles."

[Burried News]

6. Icch, I prefer Xena

[Burried News]

4. A picture of it.

You Rock Xena.

[MisterP]

5. I always saw "planet" as more of a "heritage designation"

but can you imagine if a continent-sized Oort Cloud object came into the inner system? the comet tail would reach from the Sun to Jupiter!

[Burried News]

9. Looks like Xena comes within Pluto's orbit just as Pluto comes

within Neptunes orbit. Man, Chaos theory isn't very comforting now. Can't you see a sling shot effect giving somebody a big surprise.

Heyell nuthin to wurry about if we git to workin on theyam bunker busters like George is awantin us to. Murkins can do anythin if we have amindto.

[E-Z-B]

7. I remember hearing that Pluto shouldn't even be considered

a planet. It doesn't really fit the classification. More like just a big rock floating in space.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/02/0216_Pluto.html

[Xithras]

16. If theyre right about the size, this new one almost as big as Mercury

Definitely a planet.

If it's 1.5x Pluto's 2300Km diameter, that gives it a diameter of somewhere under 3500 KM...about the same as our own moon.

[whistle]

8. Hey, that's good news, how many AU's is Xena away from the sun?

...Well, here's the answer from the article:

<snip>
The new object - as yet unnamed, but temporarily known as 2003 UB313 - is now 9 billion miles away from the Sun, or 97 times as far away as Earth and about three times Pluto's current distance from the Sun. Its 560-year elliptical orbit brings it as close as 3.3 billion miles. Pluto's orbit ranges from 2.7 billion miles to 4.6 billion.

That makes it 97 AU's, which was a term I heard on NPR today. One AU is the average distance of the earth from the sun. They were talking about really big stars and apparently there are some that are 15 AU's in diameter, a giant sun (star) that would fill the entire distance across the obit of Jupiter in our solar system.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

17. And the Oort Cloud stretches pretty far...

the heart of it is 50,000 AUs away...

50,000 times 93,000,000...ouch, my head hurts.

[DanCa]

10. Can we name her moon gabriell?

Okay am better now.

[Kelvin Mace]

11. I move we rename Pluto

Gabrielle!

All in favor?

[okasha]

26. AYE!

[Pystoff]

29. AYE!

Damn they iz hot *drools*.

[dave29]

12. The Kuiper Belt grows more

interesting every day

[Teaser]

13. Nemesis.

nt

[Paulie]

18. Nemesis would be a brown dwarf star

and it's orbit is thought to be around 88,535 AUs average, with a max of 158,100 AUs. That's so far it's easier to think in light years than AUs (1.4 avg to 2.5 max)

Nemesis would throw things like Xena at us just by being in the neighborhood. :)

[dave29]

21. nice to see some other Nemesis

"fans" out there

[Paulie]

31. Fun topic

Even though the whole idea of Nemesis makes me want to "duck and cover". :hide:

[Teaser]

34. One can hope, though.

nt

[Burried News]

14. A great astronomy site. Each day they offer a new photo.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html
If you click on an item you get a pretty fast pic. If you click on the pic you will get a very high resolution copy.

[NuttyFluffers]

15. well, that just leaves around two more 'planets' to be found...

i remember coming across astrology workers saying there should be 14-15 planet/planetoids in our system back in 1997. they said the other 5 should be found eventually, but that they have an alternate sheet doing more detailed calculations showing their effect anyway. well, sedna came and went as a planetoid. then that other one that got wholly ignored. now this... should be around 2 more before the higher sensitivity mathematics no longer show anymore (or that their at negligible effect of current mathematical analysis).

whatever. i'm just probably spouting "unscientific" hearsay hoo-ey. but my friends still recall my comments back then of the "lost planets" and look at me weird. guess they didn't like uncomfortable answers that led to. but they don't have their eyes glaze over so readily when i mention the stars nowadays. :evilgrin:

[haktar]

19. What about "Rupert"

Or are there no "Hitchhikers Guide" fans out there ? :-)

But seriously, one of the best definitions of a planet i heard so far is: rounded by gravity and not a member of a population of objects.

This would mean, 2003 UB313 is not a planet and neither is pluto.

Welcome to a solar system of only 8 known planets :evilgrin:

And now: Flamethrower on. ;-)

[Sgent]

20. Can you elaborate

why neither one would be considered a planet by that definition?

My knowledge of astronomy is woefully lacking. I know constellations, but that's about it.

BTW (for what its worth), the scientist who discovered the object (from CalTech) was on NBC. Said in the past he had argued that Pluto is not a planet, but that there are good scientific reasons either way. He also mentioned that he currently believes that Pluto should be considered a planet for historical reasons.

Of course, that's a little bit in his self interest, since he's claiming planet X is a planet by virtue of the fact it is significantly larger than Pluto -- which is a planet.

[haktar]

22. I'll try

Historically Ceres was also announced as planet an is also rather big.

Once it was recognized Ceres is only a member of what we now consider as a population (the asteroids) he was reclassified.

Now we know pluto, Quaoar,Varuna, 2004 DW, 2003 UB313 etc. are only members of the Kuiper belt population.

Therefore in my opinion they are not planets.

The only object out there where we don't know (yet) other members of the population (inner Oort Clout objects) is Sedna. But probably there are more of them out there and therefore also sedna shouldn't be considered a planet.

[DeepModem Mom]

23. NOTE: Sorry for last paragraph typing glitch; corrected version here --

Informally, the astronomers have been calling it Xena after the television series about a Greek warrior princess, which was popular when the astronomers began their systematic sweep of the sky in 2000. "Because we always wanted to name something Xena," Dr. Brown said.

[msmcghee]

24. To me, this story illustrates the weakness of human logic.

Or, more accurately, the human belief in logical reasoning as the determining factor in understanding reality. The conventional wisdom is that if we are logical enough then anything can be objectively understood. But IMO that's not true.

Logic requires the categorization of reality (as we see it anyway) into discrete, named entities. We then have the ability to examine these entities as we have defined them.

But the universe evolved without any need to categorize. What's a planet, what's a species, what's an embryo, what's a human, what is male and female?

The labels we apply to entities are often completely wrong - usually at least partially wrong. Yet, we can spend thousands of years living within the false paradigms that these lables create. The history of science is essentially the adopting of incorrect paradigms - followed by the laborious, sometimes violent struggle of casting them off when new and better information becomes available. Each new paradigm is seen as the final objective truth - despite a long human history that shows that it never really is.

Two thousand years ago monotheism was a useful paradigm that consumed most of humanity. Yet today, people who adhere to one form of monotheism or another, Christianity vs. Islam, are still waging violent wars and killing thousands of innocent people in the name of their monotheistic Gods - all of which are ancient naming systems living on as cultural wisdom.

No-one is killing each other over the question of planethood for newfound spaceballs - but I think this article shows very well the limits of human reasoning as a tool to evolve human consciousness beyond our primitive abilities.

Our need to categorize and name things can be very useful - but only as a bridge to the next level of understanding. The problem comes with the belief that our naming it - makes it so.

[DeepModem Mom]

25. An interesting post, msmcghee -- thanks! nt

[alarcojon]

27. Interesting comment

I would only quibble with the line "Each new paradigm is seen as the final objective truth - despite a long human history that shows that it never really is." I would argue that most scientists realize that the latest paradigm is always provisional, subject to revision when new ideas and evidence come in. Though I would readily grant that a paradigm can become a rut it is hard to think humanity's way out of.

[msmcghee]

28. I agree that scientists are better than most . .

However, even these enlightened scientists seem to be arguing over categorizing this spaceball as either a Kuiper Belt object or a planet.

I guess I would be more encouraged if they were questioning the definition of those categories in the greater scheme of things instead. But they avoid that because, among other things, then there will be no fixed field upon which they can test their mettle.

But, I agree that science has generally come to understand their field as a progression of paradigms - even though they still cling to the ones they prefer despite evidence to the contrary. And when they do that - it is their "belief" person inside doing it.

And, even scientists have different areas where they apply "belief" or knowledge to reality. There are plenty of scientists who claim a "belief" in biblical creation, for example.

But I love this discussion. I don't disagree with anything that's been said here. Just adding to the mix.

[Placebo]

30. This is the kind of stuff that makes life worth living.

Just please don't name it Xena.

Please.

[NinetySix]

32. What about Rama?

I think it would be fitting to name a celestial body in honor of Arthur C. Clarke. (According to Clarke's Rendezvous With Rama, astronomers had run completely out of Greek designations by the time the new body was discovered, and had started into the Hindu pantheon.)

[Robeson]

35. I think thats a great idea, and a great book!

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

33. What about calling it "Steve Guttenberg"?

Sorry, I couldn't resist.