10th Planet Discovered

[Enit]

Astronomers detect '10th planet'
By Dr David Whitehouse
Science Editor BBC news website



The new planet has a highly-inclined orbit
Astronomers in the United States have announced the discovery of the 10th planet to orbit our Sun.
The largest object found in our Solar System since the discovery of Neptune in 1846, it was first seen in 2003, but only recently confirmed as a planet.

Designated 2003 UB313, it is about 3,000km across, a world of rock and ice and somewhat larger than Pluto.

It is more than twice as far away as Pluto, in a puzzling orbit, at an angle to the orbits of the other planets.

Astronomers think that at some point in its history Neptune likely flung it into its highly-inclined 44 degree orbit.

It is currently 97 Earth-Sun distances away - more than twice Pluto's average distance from the Sun.


Its discoverers are Michael Brown of Caltech, Chad Trujillo of the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii and David Rabinowitz of Yale University.

It's not every day that you find something Pluto-sized or larger!

Chad Trujillo
David Rabinowitz told the BBC News website: "It has been a remarkable day and a remarkable year. 2003 UB313 is probably larger than Pluto. It is fainter than Pluto, but three times farther away.

"Brought to the same distance from the Sun as Pluto, it would be brighter. So today the world knows that Pluto is not unique. There are other Plutos, just farther out in the solar system where they are a little harder to find."

It was picked up using the Samuel Oschin Telescope at Palomar Observatory and the 8-metre Gemini North telescope on Mauna Kea.

Chad Trujillo told the BBC News website: "I feel extremely lucky to be part of a discovery as exciting as this. It's not every day that you find something Pluto-sized or larger!"

"The spectra that we took at the Gemini Observatory are particularly interesting because it shows that the surface of 2003 UB313 is very similar to that of Pluto."

It was first seen 21 October 2003, but didn't see it move in the sky until looking at the same area 15 months later on 8 January 2005.

The researchers say they tried looking for it with the Spitzer Space Telescope which is sensitive to heat radiation, and didn't detect it.

This gives them an upper limit of its size of 3,000 km, they say. The lower limit still makes it larger than Pluto.

The discovery of 2003 UB313 comes just after the announcement of the finding of 2003 EL61, which appears to be a little smaller than Pluto.





BD SP

~Enit


P.S. How do you put Horizontal Rules in?

[Vorchia]

Odd, how far away must an 'object' be, in an orbit around the sun to be still considered a planet anyway? It could be an asteroid in an orbit around the sun or does that MAKE it a planet? What defines a planet? At that distance, the sun is probably just another star. How far does the sun's gravitational pull provide enough power to pull something in an orbit and is this the line where a big round flying rock is an asteroid and not a planet?

Enit, I don't know about horizontal rules, use asterixes or something. That or you image link to a horizontal rule on your site.
You do mean those dividing stripes between two segments of a text don't you? (Second language....)

bdsp Vorchia

[Enit]

You do mean those dividing stripes between two segments of a text don't you? (Second language....)

Yep... I know it has something to do with [hr*] (without the *) but it doesn't work for me, I'm sur ethere's more to it....

As for when a planet is considered a planet of our solar system rather than an asteroid, I'd asume it has to do with size...

BD SP

~Enit

[Enit]

Astronomers claim discovery of solar system's 10th planet

Saturday, July 30, 2005; Posted: 6:39 a.m. EDT (10:39 GMT)


PASADENA, California (CNN) -- A group of astronomers announced Friday that an object they discovered in the distant reaches of the solar system is large enough to be classified as the 10th planet -- a claim likely to reignite a debate over just how many objects should really have the title of planet.

The object -- located 96 times as far from the Earth as the Earth is from the sun, or nearly 9 billion miles away -- was first photographed in October 2003 by astronomers at the California Institute of Technology's Palomar Observatory, north of San Diego.

While researchers say they aren't yet sure of its actual size, they have determined the object is bigger than Pluto, currently the smallest planet and the one most distant from the sun.

"If Pluto is a planet, it seems reasonable that something that's bigger than Pluto, and further away than Pluto, should be called a planet, too," said Mike Brown, a Cal Tech planetary scientist who made the discovery with colleagues Chad Trujillo of the Gemini Observatory and David Rabinowitz of Yale University.

However, a number of astronomers dispute whether Pluto, discovered in 1930, should really be classified as a planet, because it is so dissimilar from the other eight. Instead, they believe it should be classified only as a Kuiper Belt object, part of an array of icy debris in the outer reaches of the solar system.

Thousands of Kuiper objects have been discovered, and more are being found all the time.

Brown concedes that both Pluto and his new planet are Kuiper objects -- but he argues they are also both big enough to be classified as planets.

The International Astronomical Union, the official arbiter of such disputes, has classified Pluto as a planet and recently declined to demote it. Brown said resolving the argument over whether the object his team found is a planet will take years.

Brown's team has submitted a name for its proposed planet to the IAU, which won't be announced until the astronomy group hands down its ruling.

While the object was first photographed in 2003, its motion was not detected until January because it was so far away. Since then, astronomers have been studying the object to estimate its size and motion.

Brown said the planet-sized object probably wasn't discovered earlier because it was in a location where planets aren't expected.

"All of the planets are in a disc around the sun, and this object is 45 degrees out of that disc," he said.

--CNN Producers Sara Weisfeldt and Kate Tobin contributed to this report.









BD SP

~Enit

[Vorchia]

Here its a whole 45 degrees OUT... Assuming the disc theory for the formation of our sun and its planets is correct, how do we explain such an odd angle? You'd expect all the planets to be on one line, maybe Pluto and this new planet have originated elsewhere then got caught in the sun's gravitational field, at those odd angles? In that case I would easily call them Kuiper objects. Especially when looking at the highly irregular orbit of Pluto, its not just the angle, its the shape of the orbit too. It has a much more flattened elliptical orbit then the other planets's hasn't it?

From Dinotopia to science fiction, to religion to science, we do have quite varied subjects of discussion don't we? lol