New ‘news’ about the tenth planet:
The 10th planet turns out to be barely larger than Pluto, a new photograph by the Hubble Space Telescope shows.
The object — still officially unnamed but currently tagged with the designation 2003 UB313 and nicknamed Xena — covered only 1.5 pixels in the digital image taken by Hubble, but that was enough to extract the diameter: 1,490 miles, give or take 60 miles. Pluto has a diameter of 1,422 miles.
While small, 2003 UB313 is surprisingly bright, reflecting 86 percent of the light that hits it.
“It’s just crazy,” said Michael E. Brown, a professor of planetary sciences at the California Institute of Technology who discovered 2003 UB313 in January 2005 and who also led the analysis of the Hubble image. “We were shocked how bright it was.”
The Discovery Institute, when asked to comment, issued a statement that “there is no proof this planet was not intelligently designed.” Jerry Falwell similarly pointed to gaps in the fossil record.
OK. I made that last part up. The depressing thing is that those statements are believable.
Some Other Brian Guy
If it has moons, are they going to be named Joxer and Gabrielle?
And if so, will Focus on the Family complain about the lesbian overtones?
morinao
Those astronomers crack me up. Not only did they provisionally name the tenth planet after Xena, Warrior Princess, when they stumbled across the planet’s satellite they dubbed it Gabrielle.
Faux News
Joxer and Gabrielle might pass, but if the moons are named “Lesbos” and “Sappho” then Focus on the Family will shriek loudly about it.
Mr Furious
You just know this was named by a Princess Warrior geek astronomer…
canuckistani
Just so you all know, Xena is not yet the official name. All names get approved by the International Astronomical Union. My guess is that if they rule that UB313 is a planet, Xena will not be a dignified enough name for it, and it will be called Persephone or Proserpine or something suitably mythological. On the other hand, if they decide it is just another KBO, they may let it pass.
But I would love to see a planet name that offends the Focus on Family nuts.
jaime
Please Please Please lets not name a new planet Xena for the love of God.
morinao
Don’t worry. Xena and Gabrielle are just the informal nicknames used as placeholders while the committees decide whether UB313 is even a planet or not. From astronomer Michael Brown’s own webpage on the topic:
The name “Xena” is frequently heard associated with this planet; this name comes from an internal code name that we used before we publically announced the existence of the planet. Other code names have been “Santa” (2003 EL61), “Rudolph” (the moon of 2003 EL61), “Easterbunny” (2005 FY9) and “Flying Dutchman” (Sedna), and “Gabrielle” (the moon of 2003 UB313). We use these names internally simply because they are easier to say and remember than things like 2003 EL61 or S/2005 (2003 UB313) 1. There is no chance whatsoever that these will become the permanent names of these objects! As soon as the committees make their decisions these objects will get real names. When we first announced the existence of these objects we thought that the real names would be decided in days to weeks, not months to years so it never occured to us that these code names would last more than a few days.
He himself apparently favors Persephone, or Proserpina, since female deities are woefully underrepresented among the major planets, and especially since the object spends half its orbit close to Pluto’s. Unfortunately, both Persephone and Proserpina are already the names of asteroids, and most of the other Greek/Roman names are already taken except for Vulcan, which is reserved for a notional planet closer to the sun than Mercury.
StupidityRules
It’s a KBO, and sure, it’s larger than Pluto, but it won’t be the last one found that’s larger than Pluto. With better telescopes astronomers will find lots of these.
It shouldn’t be classified as a planet and Pluto should be declassified (since it’s also a KBO). It’s as simple as that.
Bruce Moomaw
The never-ending fight over whether or not Pluto should be called a “planet” is right up there with the Laputans’ five-year debate over how long to boil a 3-minute egg. I’ll repeat what I wrote about in 1999: the definition of “planet” is now strictly arbitrary. There are now a hell of a lot newly discovered KBOs intermediate in size between Pluto and the larget asteroid (Ceres); we now have an object intermediate in size between Pluto and the smallest unquestioned “planet”, Mercury; and there is a good chance that the Kuiper Belt and/or the Oort Cloud hide several objects bigger than Mercury. (And in the case of the Oort Cloud — which extends TRILLIONS of miles from the Sun — we’ll never know whether or not it does.)
I say: set the definition officially at 2000 km diameter or more, just a little bit smaller than Pluto. This will allow Pluto to keep its long-established definition as a planet, which everyone is used to by now; but it won’t let in large numbers of smaller KBO riffraff. (By this definition, though, 2003 UB313 will of course be the 10th Planet.)
Bob In Pacifica
Aren’t about three or four new “tenth” planets now? It seems the science journals report them every few months. An article in DISCOVER MAGAZINE about the guy who finds them.
canuckistani
Yeah, Planet 10’s are like Al Quaeda #2’s.
Since there isn’t a clear definition of a planet, I’m inclined to grandfather Pluto into the list, but call the rest of the KBOs planetoids. The major problem, as I see it, is expecting schoolkids to memorize the names of thousands of planets, or outraging the oldies who learned 9 planets and don’t want to unlearn any of them. Since there’s no compelling scientific reason to add more planets to the list, lets keep it as it is.
Bruce Moomaw
Except that then we’ll have one — and only one — “planet” (Pluto) that’s SMALLER than one or more NON-planets. Pfui. Set a lower size limit that (barely) allows Pluto to retain its title — 2000 km is fine for the purpose — and then, for the sake of all our sanity, DROP the matter.
KCinDC
Isn’t the Moon a complication in defining “planet” as well? Is the Earth-Moon pair a double planet?
KCinDC
And what’s this about “1.5 pixels” translating to 1490 +- 60 miles? Something got garbled in the journalism, since presumably a diameter estimate that precise isn’t based on the 1.5 pixels.
BIRDZILLA
Have they yet found the planet VULCAN yet or is it PREPLANNUS? or perhapes its ARDELIUS II or maybe TARUS II