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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."
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
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.
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Please don't read my journal
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.
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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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{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.
Finally, we can get a new Sailor Moon senshi!
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
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.
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