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Another New (Minor) Planet In Solar System
jeffsenter writes: "Another new planet (2000 WR106) in our solar system was discovered last week by a U. of Arizona astronomer. The NYTimes has the story (free reg. req.). Like the planetlet (2000 ED173) found in October, this object lies between Neptune and Pluto. The difference is this one is bigger, up to 1/2 the size of Pluto perhaps."
Or try this link instead. Once you get into the hundreds, I think "planetlet" starts making more sense than "planet."
At some point, celestial bodies in space will fall OUTSIDE the jurisdiction of any nation on Earth. For this reason, at some point, claims can be made by anyone. A physical presence on an asteriod isn't really required to make a claim on it. The issue is the ability to DEFEND the claim once it has been made. If I decide I like your asteriod, nobody but you will be able to stop me from using it for myself.
Don't think for a minute that massive wars won't be fought over such things. Think how many wars there have been in the United states since it was colonized for the sole purpose of establishing that it really DID belong to the United States. Certainly, the colonists from the 15th century and beyond were certainly not the first ones here, but that didn't stop them from taking it as their own.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
My Very Excellent Mother Just Sent Us Nine NGC-11297 Pizzas
Sounds like they should name the new planet "Pepperoni" to make it easy to remember.
I would be a paid subscriber if Taco and Hemos weren't such cunts
Isn't that what it is? Planet, planetoid, planetette, plantlette?, asteroid, TMO... It's the few screws left over when you put together your kid's bike.
A suggestion that there may be a massive planet out there, with a 6 million year orbit!
d _4 67000/467572.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsi
This guy is still analysing the orbits of more comets, so evidence is growing...
When I were your age, all round here were fields...
This document, produced as a result of Planet Specification Request (PSR) 37, defines the Planetlet for the Solar System Platform.
The goal of the Planetlet is to provide an open, third-party planet development environment for rocks that are less than half the size of the smallest of the previously-known planets in the solar system. Because of the limited size of these rocks, they typically do not provide the features available to larger rocks such as atmospheres, oceans, geological formations, and life forms. The Planetlet specification provides a high-level abstraction for developers to implement features on their planet without having to be concerned with low-level details of the particular rock.
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Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
What?! A new planet? ANOTHER new planet?
I don't know who the heck is in charge of this recount process; but personally, I suggest we go back to the original count of nine. The scientific community simply can't take this kind of indecision.
crib
Please don't read my journal
hmm.. I have no idea, IANAA (I am not an astronomer). But what sounds nice is: If a human can jump off it and reach orbit without jumping aids, it's not a planet. Just an idea.. maybe instead of human one could use any earth animal. I am too lazy what mass would be needed, but should be at least a little large ;)
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
I wonder why this was not noted by the computers.
My guess is that the software wasn't looking for it. It's also possible that there was insufficient data. If the planet differs between only two frames, then the software is quite likely to ignore it as a random abberation/cosmic ray/whatever. Computers are a lot more exacting in their standards; a human can notice the difference, then go looking for further evidence in different plates.
On a different topic: I reiterate the point I made during some other planetary discussion. Why do we need new designation? There are nine major planets, and godzillions of minor ones. Calling our diminutive neighbours planetarinos isn't going to help the cause of science at all. They're minor planets; leave 'em that way.
Surely thats just a definition using mass. If the mass is above a certain threshold, the gravitational pull will be too strong to permit spacejumping.
Someone dig up Holst, please.
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
"And like that
yes, it's a definition using mass rather then size, which I am well aware off. I think a definition on mass (actually gravitational pull which is dependant on mass) makes more sense then merely size.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
My Very Excellent Mind Just Served Up Nine (oh wait, then there's "ED173" and "WR106") Planets.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
I'm not an astronomer, but if I recall correctly, most of the reasons scientists theorize the existence of a "Planet X" have to do with anomalies in the rest of the planetary orbits that aren't cleared up by factoring in the gravitational pulls of all the planets we know about. I think people knew that Pluto existed well before it was discovered because it was obvious something was affecting Neptune's orbit -- it was "just" a matter of finding it after that. However, Pluto proved not large enough to account for _all_ the irregularities in Neptune's orbit -- it didn't mass enough.
:)
Does this mini-planet have enough mass to affect Neptune? If so, I'd consider it a full fledged planet and leave it at that. As if I have any say at all in the process.
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
Planetlet? Planette? Heck, we already had planetoid.
Actually the astronomical term "minor planet" has long been used to describe the thousands of identified solar system objects that are neither full-fledged planets nor moons. This new one, WR-106, is a member of the Kuiper Belt, essentially a large amorphous cloud of asteroids outside the orbit of Neptune; hence the official grouping Trnns-Neptunian Objects.
This is an exciting class of discoveries. It was surmised for a number of years but only in the 1990s did significant identifications of these objects begin. Now we're reached the hundreds, and there's likely many more to come, as techniques for locating them are refined. (In a nutshell, using computers to do the same flash image comparisons that Clyde Tombaugh used to find Pluto.)
What's significant about WR-106 is its hypothetical size -- which is far from verified. It could possibly be larger than Ceres (d. 570 mi), in the asteroid belt, which up until now has reigned as the largest minor planet. What this suggests is that the larger objects in the outer solar system are by no means all identified and discovered. Heck, there could even be a full-fledged twin of Mercury, or even Mars, way out in the deep dark. It's possible, and discoveries like WR-106 mean you can't just discount that possibility.
The whole question of Pluto's planethood has never really been open. What reached the press was a badly garbled story of disrespect to Clyde Tombaugh; what really happened is simply that the people who track minor planets wanted to include Pluto (and its almost-as-big moon) as part of the TNO group. There's no question, or at least wasn't, that Pluto would be at the head of that class, just as Ceres is at the head of the list of asteroids. It wasn't about downgrading Pluto, but about recognizing it as the first discovery in a vast new universe of discoveries in our outer solar system.
It's not really important to most astronomers what they're called. We've gone beyond the simplistic question of "how many planets, 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10?" to the full realization that our solar system is made up of an infinite number of objects, from Jupiter-sized gas giants, to rocks like Pluto or Phobos, down to dust specks too small to see let alone count. The list of numbered asteroids is closing on 20,000, and that's just what we can find from Earth!
The importance of this discovery doesn't lie in the headline-grabbing reconsider-what-you-all-learned-in-fourth-grade aspects, but in how this affects the questions of cosmology and planetary formation, as well as the prospects for the future. If our solar system is made up of so many small rocks, it increases the odds that there are more rock-strewn star systems out in the larger galaxy. If our solar system has ore-filled rocks all over the place, that's probably a good omen for anyone contemplating colonizing the outer solar system.
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lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
George W Bush has been found to be president of the new planet. Absentee ballots from the new planet have overwhelmingly gone in favor of the Texas governor. No word from the Al Gore camp, although the Vice-Presidents lawyers were seen buying telescopes.
Arm yourself with knowledge.
If this doesn't expose astrology as fake, I don't know what will. With all these extra planets, it's sure to throw off all those readings.
Finally, we can get a new Sailor Moon senshi!
Haven't they discovered three or four other "planets" in the past couple years? Is this another one that will be forgotten or are they considering this one an actual planet?
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Rob Flynn
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Rob Flynn
Pidgin
Not another planet! How am I going to remember its name? We'd have to create (gasp) new mnemonic devices.
My Very Excellent Mother Just Sent Us Nine NGC-11297 Pizzas
People don't like change. Especially the change of something that has been drilled into their heads since the time they were 3. Expect a lot of debate about what to do with these new "mini-planets" between the scientific community and the general public.
Whats the scientific defintion of a planet?
Why not call it a 'planette'?
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Nevertheless, there is unlimited potental that good mining and testing could do to us as a whole. There could be bacterial life or something to that effect that could cure illnesses that no other could do here on earth. There could be a new metal that doesn't originate on Earth but is vastly superior to anything we can mine here. Not only that but colonization can be a good thing.
Less overpopulated Earth, cleaner Earth due to people leaving, etc etc. This planet has an extremely good chance of healing itself if we get some people off it and on to other worlds.
This is OUR solar system, that is true. However to say that we will mess up anything we lay our hands on is WRONG. that's like saying "No, we won't explore new lands on Earth, because we might mess them up!" If everyone thought like you did we wouldn't bother leaving where we came from.
Personally I think the KEY is that all of us work together on this as a whole. If we invested in colonization like we invest in technology this would be well on it's way by now. I wouldn't mind living on a colony base on the moon or this new planet. Who knows what neat things will come out of this if we never try. I serously doubt that one piece of rock holds all the knowledge of the universe. Even so, it gives us more reason to go check it out. And if it doesn't which I expect, then go ahead and fire up the drills. A new metal just might make your computer, car, refrigerator lighter, run better, and make them more durable.
The Solar system is OUR point of origin in the universe, just like Earth is our point of origin in the solar system. I say we get out there and see what's going on.
A Penny for my thoughts? Here's my two cents. I got ripped off!
I am wondering if, like they suspect with Pluto, this planetismal might be able to hold a thin atmosphere. I haven't run any of the gas-law computations or looked up the kinetic energy tables to find out when (thermally and gravitationally speaking) a planet, with a certain gas mixture, would loose its atmosphere.
I'd love to see if; the Pluto Express Mission and its ilk would go through, what kind of liquid mixes one can find on distance snowballs like this. If they can't get to Pluto on time though, before it gets too far from the sun (or if they send a probe to look at one of these many *new planets* out further) they could consider using large lenses or some form of retransmitted light to cook the little rocks back up to temperature (sort of a planetary bake-off with the dial stuck to low).
"You cannot have a General Will unless you have shared experiences. You cannot be fair to people you don't know."
I hope NASA starts up a new program which has as its' ultimate goal to send a (dead) whale in orbit.
Nah. It'll just wind up turning into a potted flower anyway.
Whats the scientific defintion of a planet?
:-)
There really isn't one. Sure, you can point to a dictionary and quote the entry for "planet", but I can point to a different dictionary with a different definition. You can point to an astronomer who has put forth his or her preferred definition, and I can point to another astronomer who uses a different definition as his or her standard.
There are a few we can discuss (and possibly dismiss.) Clearly, "something which orbits the Sun" is inappropriate, because that would make planets out of everything from asteroids to man-made spacecraft.
"An object in space with an atmosphere and sufficient mass to have compressed it to a sphere or oblate spheroid" is much better, but there are a couple of problems with this, as well. First of all, this would mean that objects like Titan (Saturn's largest moon) would be considered planets. Additionally, not all of the objects that we consider to be planets have appreciable atmospheres; Mercury has virtually none, and the atmosphere of Pluto tends to freeze onto the planet's surface as it approaches the perihelion of its very elliptical orbit (due to the extreme cold.)
So maybe we can combine the two examples and say that a planet is "an object that directly orbits the sun, has sufficient mass to have been compressed into a sphere or an oblate spheroid, and has an atmosphere or a trace thereof." This is better, but there are still going to be people who have problems with it and object to it for one reason or another.
So in lieu of any hard-and-fast definition, I offer the following:
An object is a planet if people generally think it is.
Unscientific as hell, but it might be the only one that keeps people happy.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
They already tried that in Oregon. Didn't work, tho'. They just ended up with large chunks of blubber crushing cars. This is the unknown first catastrophic result of NASA's higher, faster, cheaper.
It may look like I'm doing nothing, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away.
--Scott Adams
I wonder why this was not noted by the computers. They are supposed to be checking for just such an event. It seems the human eye outclasses the machine this time.
Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
We can call it "ours", because it's ours.
Why? Oh, indeed. We've got the NUKES!
We will colonize the Solar System, we will mine the asteroids, we will build the space stations. We will discover origins of the solar system, the universe, and the life, or just dump garbage there, as we see fit. And you will be permitted to watch from distance. Maybe.
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Do these small planets affect the orbit of sattelites send out by nasa.. Half the size of pluto, that's still a lot of mass.
I read slashdot for the articles.
Just how big does an orbiting mass need to be before it's considered a planet? Scientists endlessly debated whether or not pluto was indeed a planet or not when it was discovered. It had a strange elliptical orbit, and was smaller than any other planet.
YOu could have a definition something like "An object massive enough the self gravitation forces it into a spherical shape which has a stable orbit around a star."
The new planet is supposed to be RUPERT damn it! Rupert!
And now I'm off to check my updated horoscope. Hmm, When Saturn is in Libra and Rupert is in Scorpio that means...
Steven
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We're faced with yet another problem with quantifying the qualitative.
Just how big does an orbiting mass need to be before it's considered a planet? Scientists endlessly debated whether or not pluto was indeed a planet or not when it was discovered. It had a strange elliptical orbit, and was smaller than any other planet.
As our technology progresses, we find smaller and smaller objects that orbit around our sun.
Where does this stop? Does a rock the size of a small town count as a planet? How about the size of a building? A dump truck? A basketball?
Just how big is a planet?
"Darn, my winmodem won't work with Linux? I'll have to recompile it... with my blowtorch."
I would not classify this as a planet, rather as a Kuiper Belt Object. There are several of them discovered already, and if one compares the Objects closely, you'll find that Pluto doesn't really deserve to be called a planet either.
One of the recent (well, last few decades) developments in astronomy is the realisation that there is a zone of many planetoids, little (in comparison) balls of ice and dust, outside Neptun's orbit. These are called Trans-Neptunian or Kuiper Belt Objects.
Now that the number of them is increasing, maybe we can finally declassify Pluto and put it in its rightful place. Of course, the Pluto-fraction won't be happy.
- Also Sprach Doktor Merkwurdigliebe