So it was only yesterday — literally — when Katherine was commenting over breakfast about how Pluto is the planet furthest from the Sun. Aside from being impressed by that bit of scientific trivia coming from a 5-year-old, I made jokes about how that wasn’t true all the time (Pluto’s eccentric orbit brings it closer to the sun than Neptune on occasion).
Then I joked about how I’d grown up in an era when everyone knew that Jupiter had twelve moons and Saturn nine. So nobody should listen to me about my layman’s scientific knowledge.
Well, turns out nobody should listen to Katherine, either.
Sky-watchers are being forced to rethink their view of the solar system after a US astronomer said he has discovered a 10th planet. If confirmed, the discovery by Mike Brown of the California Institute of Technology would be the first of a planet since Pluto was identified in 1930. “Get out your pens. Start re-writing textbooks today,” he said.
Saying that the new object is covered in methane ice and lies nine billion miles from Earth, he added: “It’s the farthest object ever discovered to orbit around the Sun.
“I’d say it’s probably one and a half times the size of Pluto.”
The new body, tentatively called 2003-UB313, was originally detected in 2003, but it was not regarded as a planet until scientists reanalysed their data earlier this year.
Not only does it have a really off orbit — 45 degrees from the ecliptic — but it’s even visible (at the moment) with the naked eye.
The astronomers have proposed a name for the “planet” to the science’s governing body, the International Astronomical Union, and are awaiting the decision of this body before announcing it.
The new planet will be visible over the next six months and is currently almost directly overhead in the early-morning eastern sky, in the Cetus constellation.
Very cool, even if it renders Katherine’s scientific know-how obsolete.
(via ypsi~dixit)
Some have proposed that they call the new thing (planet/asteroid) “Xena.” Ick.
See this page at “The Independent.”
I was a big Xena fan, too, but, jeez …
Unfortunately, I think Persephone and Chiron have already been taken. Definitely want to stay with the Roman (or even Greek) myths, though.
Hekate.
It would be kind of cool and funny to name it after the Roman god Robigus, the god of mildew, but I think Persephone is more likely to be what they name it.
Well, Persephone works (esp. with as erratic an orbit as it has). I’d thought that name was already taken, but I was thinking of Charon (Pluto’s moon). Persephone’s long been a favorite for a trans-Plutonian planet.