Rock Denied Moon Status

jeffy124 writes: "A rock found in a 1986 Voyager 2 photo near Uranus has been denied moon status. The object, dubbed S/1986 U 10, was first noticed in 1999 by researchers at the U of Arizona and is about 25 miles across. The International Astronomical Union wants more definitive photos of the object before they grant it moon stature and a real name."

Comments

Some corrections to the summary...

[morcheeba]

Don't mind me, but I found 2 signifcant factual errors in the description.

First off, the rock has only been photographed once. So, saying it was "first noticed" is true, but misleading - it's only been "noticed" once.

Second, it's not that the IAU wants a picture in order to see if it qualifies as a moon, they just want more proof that the object even exists. So, it hasn't been "denied moon status"; it's that (in light of the the available evidence) its entire existence is being denied. CNN made the same error in their headline, "Tiny rock around Uranus denied moon status"

Please forgive me if I sound grumpy. I was just expecting a little more from a 60-word summary of an 8 sentence article (and 3 of these sentences don't describe the rock in question).