Slashdot Mirror
New Frozen World Found Beyond Pluto
theBrownfury writes "BBC, Sydney Herald, and the Indian Express are reporting a new object, which is one-tenth the diameter of the Earth, and lies well beyond Pluto in an area of the Solar System known as the Kuiper Belt. The new world, which has been dubbed Quaoar, is about 1,280 kilometres (800 miles) across. Quaoar orbits the sun ever 288 years and is 1250 Km wide, about the size of all the asteroids combined. This discovery is being hailed as the most important solar system discovery in the past 72 years."
Now you all must die!
"This discovery is being hailed as the most important solar system discovery in the past 72 years."
Not by me.
Quaoar? I think you mean Planet X!
is made up of nine planets .... er ...
...
Our solar system is made up of ten planets
HallmarkOrnaments.Com
Haven't they discovered and disputed this "planet" for years? I believe I have seen this on space.com before in the past.
There's been a lot of controversy over other 'discoveries' of a 10th planet over the years, I'm just curious as to how sure these guys are, and what evidence they have that will convince their colleagues.
This has been a test. Had this been a real emergency, we would have fled in terror and you would not have been informed.
They called it "Quaoar"? You can't even pronounce it! Here I was hoping they'd have the decencey to name the planet out past Pluto as it should be named.
Goofy.
This article at TheAge disputes whether this object is really a planet...
I wonder if they just hammered on the computer to come up with this one.... random keys?
After all, they threatened to delist Pluto as a planet.
- In hell, treason is the work of angels.
"However, Quaoar is not an official name - at least not yet. In a few months, the International Astronomical Union, astronomy's governing body, will vote on it."
I vote for CowboyNeal.
Sent from your iPad.
So which one is it? 1280? 1250? Both? Neither? CowboyNeal?
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
"Quaoar orbits the sun ever 288 years"
Do I perceive a-bit of the ol' Irish accent in ye? Or are ye a pirate be?
come on fhqwhgads
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Who thinks up these names? I would like to recite the names of the planets without it sounding like I had major dental surgery after Pluto.
And didn't they realize that people get upset when you prematurely abandon a naming convention? Those of you who work in server rooms must know this. There must be dozens of Roman gods with no celestial body named after them yet.
Ooh! I've got to see if the International Star Registry does planets. I know it's not official, but it'd be cool to have someone name a planet for you, even if it was only for your money.
--
E_NOSIG
Quaoar
Otherwise known as the Vowel Planet
Table-ized A.I.
My Very Energetic Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas Q???
ahh damn now what are we supposed to use to remember the planet order
You'd think with an object that is the size of all the other Kuiper belt asteroids combined, somebody would have noticed it floating around out there.
In a related news quote from the LINEAR research team "Holy Shit, did you see the size of that rock floating out there!"
...the keys are spaced a bit too far apart for that. Then again, maybe the pretentious feline in question was stalking on stilts? ;)
- Jynx
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it well worth the effort.
I'm glad that I'm done with school now.. It would suck to be the kid these days having to learn about all these new planets found in our solar system. And why do all these new planets have such crazy names? Won't somebody think of the children?
Dunno, but I've racked my brains for the last five minutes
and I can't think of a single thing we could do with Quaoar (OSLT).
Nope. Zilch. Not a single damn use for another planet.
We still haven't figured out what we're going to do with the current lot.
Perhaps I'm an ignorant barbarian, but how is finding one more planet 'important'?
I mean... surely 'importance' has to have something to do with human aspirations?
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
How could Pluto not be considered a planetoid when it has a satellite (Charon)? Does this make any sense to anyone?
"It's here, but no one wants it." - The Sugar Speaker
Since when did we start giving new heavenly bodies names out of pulp sci-fi? What was wrong with the whole Roman god motif?
Not to mention, shouldn't Quaroroaa be referred to as "beyond Neptune," since we pretty much just finished undiscovering Pluto? Maybe we should just call the new planet "Pluto" and forget about the old one.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Can we PLEASE get on with the business of trying to, I don't know, learn stuff and stop trying to damn every damn ball of ice out there with your own personal politically correct name referring to an oppressed peoples? Let's turn Hubble around and point it at something like Jennifer Love Hewitt or something....
in 4th grade (1985-86) that a disputed planet, dubbed Planet X, had an orbit outside of Pluto yet revolved around our sun. I actually included it in our final class project. After all these years I thought it was a farce, but now someone else has heard of it.
It's the SCRABBLE PLANET!
Someone just wants to sneak this word into the dictionary so that he can beat his aged grandmother at Scrabble.
This is the only possible reason for the name.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
Support the Vowels For Bosnia campaign!
Best Slashdot Co
Interesting to note that if this object is in fact deemed a planet and they decide to keep the name 'Quaoar', it will be the first planet (not counting Earth) named for something other than a Roman deity.
1) Discover frozen planet beyond PLUTO
2) ?????
3) PROFIT!!!!
Quoth BBC:
I happen to think that that is way groovy. It's about time some other ancient belief systems got in on the planet-naming! :)
Karma: T-rexcellent.
Qwerty would be as good a name as what they have come up with, and since those indigenous people from LA are no longer around, we could use a word that is more meaningful to the current inhabitants...
Ok, my idea sucks just as bad as theirs.
My sig hates me. That's ok, I never cared for it much anyway.
No doubt there are lots and lots of big-a$$ objects in the Kuiper belt. More will be discovered in time.
here and here
For the sake of geekdom everywhere -- If there's a tenth planet out there, it's gotta be called Persephone (I don't think Rupert would go over too well).
(We miss you, Douglas)
Triv
Who came up with that comparison? And 'all' is bit broad, how about just the ones in our galaxy (which I assume is what they mean)? And even then, how do you wrap your brain around what all of them clustered together would look like?
It's like saying Mt. Kilimanjaro is about the size of all combined boulders. Huh?
-Laz
in the solar system, not "most important"... biggest as in the largest object found in _our_ solar system in 72 years.
Lead in is a little misleading...
my
p izzas
very
eager
mother
just
served
us
nine
um... quickly?
ah well, i'm sure someone else can come up with something more creative
my last sig was too controversial... now, a new and improved useless sig!
Prot was right! I knew it!
Now I know he was really an alien!
They stuck me in an institution, said it was the only solution, to...protect me from the enemy, myself
To think we still name our planets after a set of decrepit Roman gods who no-one even believes in anymore (ah, wait, that's not entirely true, sorry about that CowboyNeal) is almost as ludicrous as wondering why the galaxies beyond our own have weird names like XR-0915. Scientists may be orderly, but they've got the poetic sense of a brick in a snowstorm. Me? I'd name the new planet Coca-cola after selling it to the same company.
- Jynx
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it well worth the effort.
Lies! All lies and stretching truth! Pluto facts currently show that pluto is actually TWO bodies in close orbit around each other and that the old "discoverer" was wrong.
And... here is the good part... THE DEFINITION OF "PLANET" is currentl purely based on mass size.
This rules out both parts of fake-pluto for some astronomers!!... and TOTALLY rules out large asteroids like the one just mentioned in this article.
This article should never have been posted. Its not science fact.
- Liquid oceans on Europa
- Ice on the moon
- Possible signs of water erosion on Mars
This seems only important to people counting rocks and not to people with any hope of visiting them or furthering our understanding of the one we're on.I knew he was really from K-Pax
And on this object, there is presently a bunch of ice. Ok, so why not call it Iceworld or something? Or, it is the tenth planet, so they should actually call it Planet X. This could also be tied into the recent plans to send a probe to europa to drill through the ice and look for life in the very cold water under the ice. Anyway, that's about all I have to say about it.
For those who can't use Google:
g ods.html
Quaoar Their only god who "came down from heaven; and, after reducing chaos to order, out the world on the back of seven giants. He then created the lower animals," and then mankind. Los Angeles County Indians, California
http://www.angelfire.com/journal/cathbodua/Gods/Q
Why abandon a perfectly good naming convention? How about Vulcan?
Slashdotter are stupid and biased.
Quaoar - Their only god who "came down from heaven; and, after reducing chaos to order, out the world on the back of seven giants. He then created the lower animals," and then mankind. Los Angeles County Indians, California
/ Qg ods.html
http://www.angelfire.com/journal/cathbodua/Gods
Has anyone contacted the Banzai institute and asked for Buckaroo's opinion on the discovery of the location of Planet Ten?
Will the Nova police cover this story up?
Z.
-- Under/Overrated is meta-moderation, and therefore is Redundant.
That's what YOU know. My informants have just let me in on the secret as to WHY Quaoar's so important. It's made of rich, perfectly preserved, creamy 50+ better-than-french Brie.
- Jynx
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it well worth the effort.
Astronomers named the new object Quaoar, after the creation myth of the Tongva people who inhabited the Los Angeles area before the arrival of the Spanish and other European settlers.
To the indigenous peoples, Quaoar was the great force of nature that summoned all other things into being.
I guess they ran out of Roman gods already.
.cig - what you do after winning a good flame war
In 'Mostly Harmless', a tenth planet was discovered. In the story it was named Persephone, but it was more commonly known as Rupert, which was the name of the astronomer's (who discovered it) parrot. With this discovery, the science of astrology could be set back years. What happens if you were born while Rupert was in your tenth house of Mars, etc.
And so, what is the earth and the moon if not two bodies in close orbit around each other? Ya think the earth isn't orbiting around the moon? Think again brother.
Secondly, what alternative definition would you suggest for a planet other than that it has to be massive enough? (And probably be in orbit around the sun...which is kind of trivially obvious I guess.)
... that should be the Sydney MORNING Herald, not the "Sydney Herald".
This "discovery" was made LONG ago. They just never nailed down the exact trajectory it took around the Sun. They called it something else, so we'll see which name wins, the new or the old. And since it lies in the Kuiper Belt, it's probably just an asteroid anyways. In a few days/weeks we'll know more; and if this turns out to be more than an asteroid I'd be amazed. Plus an object that size doesn't explain Pluto's eccentric orbit. Not enough mass.
If it is a planet, it orbits the sun once per year. It just has longer years.
I'm Abram Bender. You're not.
Ok, they have some vital stats on this "planet"
can someone here please tell me ot point ot links on how you can from observing something through a telescope tell how wide a dot of light is and oll those other statistics? I understand through cromatography you can see different things...
How do they get these statistics?? Other than just pulling a number out their butt?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Wasn't that the pink stuff Clint Howard had Kirk and Spock drink in The Corbomite Maneuver?
Schnapple
Aren't there hundreds of these objects of similar size flying around in the Kuiper belt and it has already been decided to not classify any of them as planets? How is this a significant discovery?
The standard scrabble rules state in effect that you are not allowed to use proper nouns...
It seems to me that an object of this size could influence the Kuiper belt substantially. Could this be Nemesis?
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
All I have to say is: I don't want to hear any more complaints about what a crappy name "Ogg Vorbis" is ever again! :-)
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
What boggles my mind is why these people are racking theres because they can't figure out whether to pigeon hole the floating rocks as planets or just asteriods. Kuniper belt object? Whats Earth, an inner belt object? We have lots of rocks in this part of the solar system, too. It seems like they have a cactus up the ass because Pluto and this thing aren't gas giants like the rest of the outer planets.
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
What makes an object a planet? Size? The presence of its own sattelites? An atmosphere? What separates planets from large asteroids?
It seems to me the astronomy community can't decide. How hard can it be? It's an arbitrary classification that doesn't actually mean anything. It's all just hunks of rock orbiting the sun. It's a classification that doesn't actually mean anything. Somebody just make a decision and let's all stick to it. It's annoying not knowing how many planets have been discovered in our own solar system.
Film at 11.
I believe it was TIME magazine that reported this a number of months, if not a year or so ago, they claimed it to be "Planet X".
Don't forget, it's pronounced "Planet Ten," version 10.0.
Of course, it can't be used in Scrabble because it's a proper name. Maybe they hope an element will get named after it for Scrabble purposes. But quaoarium just isn't that euphonius. :)
Read Bujold. Free (as in
So, if all we have with this new thingie is the second largest Kuiper Belt object after Pluto - so what? Isn't the news play just about trying to get more funding from the fine fellows who've identified it, which is more likely if the headlines scream "Tenth Planet!" What a cynical abuse of the press. Science should stop grubbing, and strive for purity of purpose, lest the results themselves be corrupted. Prostitution just isn't the same as free love.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
...and they give it a name only a Scrabble enthusiast could love.
This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it. - Dorothy Parker
Now THERE'S a game with arrogant, stuck-up stoopid gods...
My point was, however, that we waste time calling jupiter jupiter at all anymore. I want to buy it and call it "The Place Laughing Gas Comes From".
Jynx
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it well worth the effort.
so says this site:
Quaoar: Their only god who "came down from heaven; and, after reducing chaos to order, out the world on the back of seven giants. He then created the lower animals," and then mankind. Los Angeles County Indians, California
//radiotakeover.
Even more astonishing than the planet itself is the fact that the only thing on it is a little French boy with a rose...
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
They can use this as the launching vehicle for Ice Pirates II!
Wu-Tang Name: Half-Cut Skeleton Get your own Wu-Na
Hmm, Microsoft marketing department is at it again.
I think this new planet will be named Planet Xbox!
"Microsoft Xbox, the only console with a planet behind it!"
That sounds like the description of a computer programmer!
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
I had this theory that a much larger planet is further out, but is very dark in color, and thus it hasn't been seen by albedo, and no one was looking in the right place to see it eclipse out other stars.
Of course, I haven't taken a course in astronomy since the 1980s, and I may be totally missing something obvious ("If that were true then the Hubble's Heisenburg Compensator would have found it, duh!"), but I have always thought if I wanted the *correct* answer to something I should post something obviously wrong on Slashdot.
____________________
I had a Heisenberg-mobile, but every time I looked at the speedometer, I got lost.
Quaoar is California Spelling of [an] American Indian [God]
The God of Vowels, no doubt.
(I know I know, I cannot kick this vowel thing.)
Table-ized A.I.
Well, I think the thing that would make it an important discovery would be the implication that there are lots of large objects covered with water & volatile organics in the Kuiper belt. (added to : biggest object discovered since Pluto, & maybe Pluto not a planet). (Quaoar is thought to contain rock, water ice and frozen organic compounds such as methane..")0 /07/ice.objec t/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/1
Of course this will be of more practical importance in a few centuries (millenia?) when folks start colonizing the Kuiper belt...
Unless we could get the Bushies all fired up about building an interplanetary tanker to go git us some of that 'Texas tea' covering Quaoar?
Return of the Beverly (Quaoar) Hillbillies, Episode 6, anyone?
You've just discovered the Rhode Island of the universe.
Maybe we will make it a droid colony or something..
I don't think the name will stick myself. If anything, I think most people, like me, will call it Planet X and that name will stick because of popular demand.
Even if it is not deemed a planet, given they want to strip Pluto of that title, I think Planet X is as good a name as any. At the least 99% of people can pronounce it.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
My father is a heavy believer in astrology. Stories like this just make me wonder how someone that believes in something so insane can continue to hold their beliefs after discoveries of new planets... Astrology as a quack science has been around for quite awhile. When I asked him how astrology can be reconciled with things like pluto only being discovered in the last century, his response was that astrologers ALWAYS KNEW there must be another planet, and where it was...
Guess it's time for him to start having KNOWN there MUST be 10 planets in the solar system... _
Check, yo:
My Very Energetic Mother Just Served Us Nine Potato Quiches
take that!
ZERO
"I don't believe in planets, you insensitive clod!"
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
If it's a planet, give it a proper name from the list of the major Roman gods. When they named Pluto they suggested the following (from Appolonius.net). I vote for Baccus, god of wine and mysteries, or secondly Cronus.:
The naming of Pluto is a story by itself. Early suggestions of the name of the new planet were: Atlas, Zymal, Artemis, Perseus, Vulcan, Tantalus, Idana, Cronus. The New York Times suggested Minerva, reporters suggested Osiris, Bacchus, Apollo, Erebus. Lowell's widow suggested Zeus, but later changed her mind to Constance. Many people suggested the planet be named Lowell. The staff of the Flagstaff observatory, where Pluto was discovered, suggested Cronus, Minerva, and Pluto. A few months later the planet was officially named Pluto. The name Pluto was originally suggested by Venetia Burney, an 11-year-old schoolgirl in Oxford, England.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Call it Tux!!
I say name the chunk of ice Treeluvinhippy!
>
Otherwise known as the Vowel Planet
No, that's Uranus.
Oh wait, I'm sorry, Uranus is the Bowel Planet.
How the hell did they discover this? The Earth and Beyond login servers have been down since early this morning!! I hold the Jenquai and Terran's responsible!
:wq!
One would hope they'll go away but I reckon they'll be rationalizing like mad in the next few days, to emerge even crazier than before.
Is there anyone in the astronomical community who can explain the apparent desire to "de-list" Pluto as a planet? It's not like a diving .com stock that NASDAQ can just yank. It seems to fit the accepted definition of "planet" (a non-luminous hunk of something that is larger than an asteroid and orbits the sun only somewhat eccentrically**) even if we later discover it is not even the largest object in the Kuiper Belt. If the line between "big asteroid" and "planet" is arbitrary, why the desire to shift the cutoff and exclude Pluto? It'll have no effect on the planet, just on textbooks and things. Will we have to start referring to it as "The Asteroid Formerly Known As Pluto"?
**Obligatory Dom DeLuise joke here.
You shall see a cow on the roof of a cotton house.
Worst. Name. Ever.
...it should be named Yuggoth.
A team of astronomers utilizing the latest technology to scan the outerreaches of the solar system announced today that they had discoverred the solar system's 10th planet.
"We're really pleased to have discoverred the solar system's 10th planet. Only though diligent research methods, including pointing telescopes at lots of different areas of the sky, were we able to make this discovery," said team leader George Randi.
When asked what was most satisfying about the discovery, Randi said "Definitely making the '10th Planet of the Week' website. Almost all of our buddies have discoverred at least one 10th planet, so we were feeling a little left out."
Astronomy buffs are also encouraged to rate the discovery at "scientificornot.com" and "wasteofmoneyornot.com". Said team member Alfred Inglebrot, "Our discovery of the 254,357th asteroid got all ones and a two. We're hoping that finding the new 10th planet will appropriately get us a few tens. At least until someone else discovers the new 10th planet next week."
The discovery was not without controversy, however. A competing russian research team claims they found this week's 10th planet first at 3:04 AM on Sunday, preceding Randi's team's discovery at 9:27 AM bt over 6 hours. "We were robbed," said Alexander Dumivsk. "The Russians are always overlooked in favor of American glory."
The Americans downplayed any controversy. "They can try again next week. Even if we were a little later, our 10th planet is obviously the biggest, and that's certainly more important that precise timing."
paintball
as in, the biggest object we've found since Pluto. Not most important, not most earth-shaking, not most scientifically interesting, just the largest object.
That its "Rupert"
It just has to be named this, after the Late Douglas Adams (Mostly Harmless) [RIP]
Just as he predicted......
My first thought was, "I wonder if Stallman named it".
:)
No, then it would have been "GNU/Quaoar".
(-1, Obvious Poor Joke
deus does not exist but if he does
Quaoar: Their only god who "came down from heaven; and, after reducing chaos to order, out the world on the back of seven giants. He then created the lower animals," and then mankind. Los Angeles County Indians, California
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
Okay, here's the definition of a planet from dictionary.com:
1. A nonluminous celestial body larger than an asteroid or comet, illuminated by light from a star, such as the sun, around which it revolves.
So what is the definitiion of an ansteroid?
Any of numerous small celestial bodies that revolve around the sun, with orbits lying chiefly between Mars and Jupiter and characteristic diameters between a few and several hundred kilometers.
From this I would conclude that it probably is a planet given its dimensions. But really you are just drawing an arbitrary line between asteroid and planet. Personally, I think that if it is within a belt of asteroids, then it is probably an asteroid, and if it isn't, then it is probably a planet.
It's just an arbitrary distinction given to an object orbiting the sun. Also, I believe it is thought that the asteroid belts are really just planets that didn't quite get it all together. Who knows.
What?
New DS9 tongue twister:
Quark, Queue me up a Quick Quart of Quaoar
Table-ized A.I.
No, it orbits the sun once per year, just like everyone else. It just equates to 288 earth years :P
Mercury: Messenger God.
Venus: Hottie God
Mars: War God
Jupiter: King God
Saturn: Fertility God
Uranus: God of the Sky
Neptune: God of the Sea
Pluto: God of the Dead
Quaoar: God of the Queer
Of course, this information was suppressed by the Romans when they assimilated the Greek gods. The Romans just weren't into 'doing it greek'. Why they left that homo statue David standing is a mystery to me.
How far exactly does this planetoid come from earth? I suppose if they just noticed it them it's probably nearer to earth lately?
Hopefully we'll be able to get a decent peek at it now via satellite/telescope. I wonder if they'll be able to get some satellites near enough to take a good look during my lifetime.
All your old schoolbooks just became useless - phorm
hmm I think it's too small to be a planet.
Has the solar orbit been monitored? Could this
just be an object that got caught up into an orbit
around the sun?
Comic book guy:
Is there any word in Klingon for loneliness?
(Grabs pocked Dictionary, makes fist)
"Quaoar!"
Or would that be Microsoft Planet XP (TM)?
That is all.
A publicly traded company exists solely to make profits for shareholders.
It's the SCRABBLE PLANET! Someone just wants to sneak this word into the dictionary so that he can beat....
Lesson learned: Never play scrabble with an active astronomer.
Table-ized A.I.
Everybody knows that the planets are supposed to be named after the Roman gods. That's just the way it is. Here's a list of some of the more common Roman gods. I'm sure some of the Hercules and Xena fans out there can add to this list.
Personally, I like:
I'm not suprised that the articles all point back to the bigger debate of what classifies as a "planet."
Compared to the possibility that out solar system could have a 10th planet, the idea that we should only consider 8 of them planets seems almost mroe important to the people involved.
IMHO, if scientists considered Pluto a planet for as long as it's been considered, use it as the basis for a planet. Of course, then you have to consider Jupiter's largest moons (and our moon for that matter) planets in their own right.
An alternative, use Mercury as the basis. There's been no debate that Mercury is a planet in it's own right, so that works as a mark. But, the people who discovered Pluto all those years ago would be without the prestige of finding a true "planet."
Or better yet, let's just keep arguing about it. Which actually isn't a bad idea, it keeps the hunt for larger object heated, and it keeps those people thinking.
I'm not a scientist but I can bet my ass that this is not the last one.....
Alien: It's only natural that humans would use a base-10 number system. You have 10 of everything. 10 fingers, 10 toes, 10 planets in your solar system...
Human: Uh, that's nine planets.
Alien: Keep looking.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
You're going to bring the wrath of Steve Jobs down on you. It's planet "ten" not "X". Trademark pending, patent pending, soul pending.
Yeah, I know, troll -1.
Don't you hate it when someone takes something completely unrelated, like ASTRONOMY, and uses it to make a political statement? I can see it coming now, there will be politically correct software coming where a really annoying popup will espouse some political view or another. Spare me. Save it for something we can opt out of, not a planet that will be named for all time.
Time to start a "Name it Persephone" website?
Yes, I'm a geek. Sue me.
What is your favorite pronunciation of Quaoar?
1) kyoo-ohr
2) kway-ohr
3) kwow-ahr
5) kwak-kwak
6) k-pax
7) kow-boi-neel
... and then build a giant "Death Star" and blow it up.
"No fair, you changed the outcome by measuring it!" - Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth
http://www.shatters.net/celestia/
It's a shame that it's so far away that we can't get a good texture map for it (or for Pluto for that matter).
Sigs are for people who started using the net _after_ '86.
If they teach it in k-3rd grade as a planet.. then it will be a planet for all eternity. *grin*
Aren't the names of new planets supposed to be auctioned off by the Gub'ment. I'm wager on Planet Starbucks being the front runner.
I am not a number! I am a man! And don't you
That's no planet, that's a space station!
This is NOT a planet, its a Kuiper Belt object. Most likely, it will be referred to as a planetoid.
Alot of people also argue that Pluto is actually part of the Kuiper Belt and not a true planet. If anything, this discovery hurts Pluto's bid for planet-dom. Also, Pluto has a crumby elliptical orbit that swings near Neptune.
Google Search
Suggestion: Planet Kwyjibo.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
Does anyone know where the name "Earth" comes from?
And don't anyone say "it was named after a worm"
Your aspirations are simply too puny! We need all the material we can get our hands in, in order to build a Dyson Sphere around the sun!
Why don't we just define a "planet" as "an object that maintains an atmosphere via its gravity well."?
It'd sure clear up a lot.
What's this Submit thingy do?
KWAY-OR?
At least the BBC version didn't have a pronounciation guide.
It's obvious that this is a Vorlon Planet Killer come to destroy the Earth - Bush convinced them that Al Queda had links to the Shadows.
is Persephone. (per-SEF-oh-nee) This would be the chick from Greek mythology that ate the pomogranate seeds and thus had to stay in Hades for half the year (when the world grows cold), and gets to come out the other half (when the world warms up again).
Most of the SF and speculative fiction/nonfiction articles over the last few decades have all referred to a tenth planet as Persephone, on the assumption that we would continue naming major astronomical objects for ancient mythological figures.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
"That's no moon..."
It's here:
http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~chad/quaoar/
Please don't slashdot the page. Take a number and just click the link when your number comes up. Single file, please. (Kind of a slow-loading page already, hence no link...)
chuk
how everyone is using Google News these days to submit stories to /.
More than mere navel gazing.
Alf was right. He knew it 15 years ago and we are just now figuring it out!
Listen to TV aliens. They know more then you think.
As a Silver Spring resident, I feel your pain.
alluding of course to the high concentration of nitrous oxide in Jupiters composition?
Here is a link to the Quaoar FAQ, maintained by Chad Truijillo, one of the planet's co-discoverers. There's a lot of cool stuff there, including the discovery images (animated so you can see it moving across the star field), the Hubble images, information about the orbit, etc.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
So it's 1280 km "across" and 1250 Km "wide". How does that work out? This is on two successive sentences. Nice!
Random is the New Order.
5. An inept reporter who misspelled 'Quasar'...
4. A new interplanetary CDMA relay station sponsored by Qualcomm...
3. Some drunken Brooklynite...
2. A homophobic astronomer with a southern drawl...
1. Somebody tried to use a non-Roman god but couldn't remember the name of that winged Aztec creature...
Galaphine
My Very Energetic Mother Just Served Us N Pizzas.
My amazing wife - Artist, Author, Philosopher - Laurie M
Now we know that Brian Tanner shouldn't have got in trouble at school after Alf told him about the two planets beyond Pluto, named Alvin and Dave.
Right now, if you google for "Quaoar," you'll find one unrelated hit, one news item, and a suggestion that maybe you meant "Quasar."
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
The new world, which has been dubbed Quaoar, is about 1,280 kilometres (800 miles) across. Quaoar orbits the sun ever 288 years and is 1250 Km wide, about the size of all the asteroids combined.
So, is it 1,280 or 1,250?
Hint: The difference wouldn't be so significant if you didn't write them right next to each other like that.
That means Prot really was an alien
they're now known as the
"Planet Q" nuts...
nbfn
So, you must be older than 248 Earth-years then (that's the time Pluto takes to revolve around the sun).
Or wait... you a one-year old kid?
It should be named Persephone (per-sef-an-nee), damnit! Larry Niven must be apeased!
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
My Very Eager Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas Quickly!
---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
From the movie K-PAX.
Jeff Bridges (Doctor) : Where I come from we have 9 planets.
Kevin Spacey (Prot): Actually it's 10, but that's not important right now.
It's the Zetas, Nancy was right, they really do exist!
http://www.zetatalk.com/
It's only natural that stupid people would use a base ten numbering system.
Here's something interesting to pay attention to:
How long will it take the science textbooks in your local school to reflect this change? One of the first things they teach kids in science classes is the number of planets. How many 3rd grade styrofoam ball solar system projects have there been?
Remember the year the planet was discovered (even if it winds up in the same argued category as Pluto) and you can use it as a argument when kids are using textbooks 10 years from now that still don't have the new planet in them.
Sigh.
In not one of the three original articles does it say the this is being hailed as the "most important discovery in the past 72 years". They all say that it is the biggest find in the Solar System since Pluto itself 72 years ago.
And, if you read the articles in context, it's pretty obvious that they mean "size" big, not "important" big.
I'm all for editorializing, but get your facts straight, Mr. theBrownfury.
Tuus crepidae innexilis sunt.
In other words, you're too lazy to look it up or do the math before you post! ;-)
The speed of light in a vacuum is 300,000 km/s (not meters), or 18,000,000 km/min.
So, here is the actual (approximately) factual information on Jupiter:
Of course, all of these vary at apogee, perigee, etc. - but not by much, so cut me some slack! At any rate, you're only off by an order of magnitude or so.
So this new body, at a distance of 6 billion km from the sun, would be about 333 light-minutes or 5.5 light-hours away. Wow.
- MFN
"Slow down, Cowboy! It has been 3 years, 7 months and 26 days since you last successfully posted a comment."
Please! For the love of the neo-pagan movement we must suppress this! Ten planets will totally screw up all of the Astrologer's charts! What is to become of us when we find that all that we thought we knew bout our futures is wrong because we've been assigned the wrong planet?
Now we find that Jupiter is not ascending, Qualcom, er, Qualuud, er, whateverthehellitscalled is really in the house of Bal Saggoth!
GGRRRRR!!!! I'll never know my lucky lotto numbers!
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
anyone think whatever scientist named this planet also recently a won a certain MySQL mascot naming contest?
Doesn't quite fit I guess.
I'm Rick James with mod points biatch!
Hehe, one man's order of magnitude is another man's rounding error. Thanks for the correction - I'm a computer scientist, not a physicist.
That's right, it's a planet. Certainly not an alien death cruiser on a slave recruitment mission. Just a nice little planet, bristling with laser cannons... I mean, rocks...
Thanks to a momentary lapse of reason (the callous and thoughtless act of giving the 10th planet a ridiculous name), today's astronomers have doomed thousands of potential future astronomers to study business instead. This will be due to the fact that they failed their grade 4 science tests after having spelled the name of that damned planet incorrectly.
Sigs are bad for your health.
My Very Energetic Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas Quickly
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Everyone knows that the only planet behind Pluto is Yuggoth.
That was funnier than piss, why'd you have to go ruin it?
Mars - martians
//rdj
venus - venusians
qwaoar - ??????
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
Quaoar (pronounced Kwah-o-ar) - which is still hard to pronounce.
;)
This discovery is being hailed as the most important solar system discovery in the past 72 years.
I'll say, it's the first "planet" that's not been named after a greek god! This one gets its name from the creation force of the Tongva Indian tribe! How cool, huh? We waited 72 years for something to pop up and we wreck our big chance at coming up with a cool name and call it Quaoar?
Clearly this speaks for humanity.
bluHatter
Same guy who named it named this thing. That's not German ... that's the model name. I swear.
Here we thought the world would end because 9 planets lined up in 2000. Turns out we needed to wait for 10 planents to get lined up.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
"Not grasping" you mean, given your assertion that her tits are fake.
More than mere navel gazing.
In Portuguese, Quaoar sound awfully close to something like an invitation to stick your ass in the air! (I kid you not!!!!)
I mean, every self respecting Doctor Who fan knows this. It's where the Cybermen are from.
Pity it blew up a few years ago, but then the timeline in that show makes any Star Trek series look normal.
We should start using Star Wars names for newly discovered planets. Tatooine! Alderaan! Dagobah! Naboo!
Alternately, we can take a cue from Earth and Beyond, and start naming them after dead astronauts. Planet Grissom! Planet McAuliffe! And so on.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Well, it seemed funny in my head...
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
I voted for "fucktard".
Think of it.
"Gee, you must be from planet fucktard".
And puts another Stonehenge in my backyard?
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
Mercury was discovered to actually have an extremely thin atmosphere fairly recently. Although I can't recall if it's native to the planet or captured from the sun.
I seem to remember Prot in K-PAX saying something about a planet out there. I could be wrong.
>> If God decides to whack us with a rock, I really don't think there is a whole lot we can do to stop it.
If God decides to whack us with ANYTHING, I don't think we can do much to stop it!!
Well, the US has a huge budget surplus now that the Bush administration has cut the budgets for most social programs.
I'm going to calll my congressman tonight to see if we can't get say $1,000,000,000 for a bunch of language scholars to study the Planet vs. Kupier belt controversy.
In fact, i'm going to make this a challenge to slashdot users from other countries to see what country will pledge the most to this very important cause.
CmdrTaco is from Cruithne, Cowboyneal is from Quaoar
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
There's something to be said for tradition, and personally, I think that if it's really a planet they really do need to name it after a character from ancient mythology.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Sorry folks, its just some bird crap on the telescope. No self-respect 21st century discovered planet would follow an orbit proposed in a dark old century where people who lived on a flat Earth in a geocentric solar^H^H^H^H^H geo system.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
> Quaoar. It is pronounced 'Lie-nucks'.
Silly troll. It is pronounced 'guh-NEW lie-nucks'.
This object (planet or not) is named after an local (california) indian tribes god.
... whenever a text is transmitted, variation occurs. This is because human beings are careless, fallible, and occasiona
Quaoar: Their only god who "came down from heaven; and, after reducing chaos to order, out the world on the back of seven giants. He then created the lower animals," and then mankind. Los Angeles County Indians , California
----
"Those who quote others are more likely to one day be quoted" -Tom Planter
You should know better. They were named by Greeks who thought the planets WERE gods!
I can think of several reasons why this won't
be classed as a planet:
for most of it's orbit. (Though for the next 15 years it will likely have an atmosphere of nitrogen, methane, and carbon monozide.. then it'll freeze solid again. That's why we should be sending a probe there now.)
reflects more light and makes it easier to study.
----- obSig
- Around half the size of Pluto (and there's been dispute if Pluto is a planet).
- 5% of the sky was looked at before finding Quaoar, so there might very well be a dozen more Quaoar-sized "planets" in the Kupier belt. Even Pluto-sized planets might be out there.
- Water, methane, methanol, and carbon dioxide ice seem to exist on Quaoar.
- Quaoar's name isn't decided yet and its designation is 2002 LM60 until a name is officially decided upon in a few months.
- Quaoar is pronounced "kwah-o-wahr" and is the name of a great force of creation among the Tongva people.
- Quaoar is 42 AU from Earth, while Pluto and Neptune are both 30 AU from Earth. 1 Astronomical Unit = One "Sun to Earth" distance.
- If standing on Quaoar, what one would see at the Sun (and the Earth) would be what happened 5 hours ago, since light takes 5 hours to travel to Quaoar.
- A Space Shuttle would need 25 years to travel to Quaoar.
- Google News about Quaoar.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
I checked out the orbital paths on Pluto and Quaoar
http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~chad/quaoar/
I have to propose a different theory. I think Pluto and Quaoar are co-orbiting planets. IOW, they are each-others moon and they together circle around the sun. This will explain Pluto's eccentric orbit. With more data, if pluto's average year equals quaoar's average year, it would confirm this theory. That being so....
I vote we call this new planet Fifi(after Pluto's girlfriend).
H R Hashim
Why did they name it Quaoar or whatever it is? It seems completely idiotic that they would deviate completely from the conventions of naming planets; all the other planets are named after Roman gods, so it seems reasonable that they should have named this one after a Roman god. In fact, it would have been completely appropriate to name it Erebus, the darkness of the underworld.
It seems every year, I hear something about someone discovering "the planet after Pluto". How many times has the 10th planet been discovered now? Is this planet the same thing? Something new. I'm too friggin confused at this point.
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
Where are we going?!?
PLANET TEN!!!
When?
REAL SOON!!!
Moon2.com. If only it were 1999, this would already be funded!!
Let's call it X. I am sure we can find a few reasons.
Why do geeks feel that they can change the name of the Sun? I personally feel that it is incredibly ignorant to call the Moon Luna or the Sun Sol. The Moon and The Sun are it`s names. Period. It happens to also be the proper noun. (Yes, proper nouns can have "the" in it i.e. The Bronx - you don't say I'm from Bronx). It`s like people who insist on calling Israel Jewish-occupied-Palestine or something (NOT flamebait! Not getting into a I-P debate, just making an analogy!). Does anyone else feel this way, or am I the only one? I understand that "The Moon" and "The Sun" are very Earth-centric terms, and obviously most planets and every solar system has their own "Moon" and "Sun," but I still feel that we have not come to a point where this name change is necessary. Any comments?
Some asteroids are now known to have satellites of their own...
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."
It starts with "Q" just like Quaoar, but is easier to pronounce -- and easy to swallow!
I got it- that's the name of Yamcha's cat...
Dude, that's Uranus.
It's even fallen down laughing.
named after our favourite web site...
/sarcasm on, in case anyone is wondering
/sarcasm off
IMHO someone's angry at the fate of Native Americans at the hands of the rest of us and wants to call attention to it. Choosing a name that's nigh unpronounceable in English only draws more attention and needles everyone else. After all, once couldn't choose a (gasp) Roman god, those Europeans are eeeevil.
(sigh)
- My ancestors were still IN Europe until 1956, so DON'T FRELLING BLAME ME.
So, I've been wondering for a while if there is a "definitive" definition of a planet. I've always used the definition that a planet was any object that was formed in the accretion disc of a star. Is this correct or not at all? Also, if you are to believe in the Bode-Titius Rule, the new planet should be 77 or so AU from the sun, which may be a reason to believe Quaoar isn't a planet.
Oh Great! Silly space object names are only gonna give scient*logy more appearent credibility.
Table-ized A.I.
...what part of "no text" don't you understand??
AP news update: "At a press conference, US Attorney General John Ashcroft declared planet Quaoar as a possible terrorist hideout for Bin Laden, and said he is sending FBI agents there to search for Al Qaida. He commented: "Anything that starts with a 'Q' is suspect."
Are you sniffing Freon? WTF does this have to do with "geeks?" "Sol" and "Luna" have been in use for one hell of a lot longer than "the sun" or "the moon." Where do you think terms like "Solar System" and "Lunar Module" come from? This doesn't mean that it's incorrect to use generic terms like "the sun" or "the moon" .. it's just a local convenience (i.e., a person living in the suburbs of Chicago might talk about taking a trip into "the city", where "the city" implies Chicago because of its close proximity.)
..actually planet x stuff mostly comes from zacharia stichin and his translations of ancient sumerian records. Stuff written down by real humans a long time ago. Beyond that I won't speculate, but there is something to it, the translations I have read are fairly detailed, but those are in dispute as well. No link handy, but worth a few minutes with google if you are interested. Hmm, sorta like the "myth" of the biblical flood, but then you find out there really was some sort of giant flood, many ancient cultures all have more or less the same stories and records.
My rule of thumb is, the older I get the less I'm a know-it-all, and am more open to at least checking out stuff with an open mind, see maybe if there's a smidgen of reality in there. As in, who really knows? I remember as a teen age kid dreaming(real dream I still remember it was so vivid) of a thing that might have looked like a console, and I was communicating with people with sounds and video all over the planet instantly and had access to all this knowledge at my fingertips. I woke up and wanted one, but they didn't exist then, not really, not for joe average anyway. This was early 60's btw, now I own that stuff. I use "magic black windows" to provide my electricity now, silent, no fumes,no noise, work quite well. Internet "experts" keep telling me it doesn't work, even today. Their loss, same as people who don't own computers say they aren't useful enough to bother with them. Oh well.... And as to crystals, just read a story last week that they can store sounds and stuff in memory of a kind. Umm, no link again but it was some mainstream normal news place, I surf a lot.
diggit, no one knows, it's all guesses, even the experts
Get your bloody mitts off!
Wales needs vowels!
Typical geek ruining a perfectly good joke with inconvienent facts!
It's good that they're abandoning the naming convention based on Roman gods. However, instead of Quaoar, I think it's most appropriate that we name the planet after the predominant god of our age: Darwinius, the god of evolution.
it has to be Yuggoth
FYI: Oberon and Titania were from "A Midsummer Night's Dream", not "Much Ado About Nothing". They were the King and Queen of the fairies.
Although, I have to admit that "Much Ado About Nothing" might have been more interesting with them included, particularly the Kenneth Branagh screen version...
I'll get flamed for this, but as a religious conservative, the problem that I have with the name "Sol" is that it implies that the Sun is just a plain old ordinary ball of gas with a name. That there is nothing particularly special about it, or about its third planet and the inhabitants of that planet. We've got "Sol" and "Rigel" and "Sirius" and all of these ordinary stars, and none of them are any better or worse than the others, so therefore there is no need to treat our own sun with any sort of special respect or reverence, right?
The problem with this attitude is that it devalues human life in a culture where the value of human life has already hit rock bottom. If you believe, as I and the vast majority of Americans do, that the Sun and the Earth were created specifically for us (by which I mean humans), it is misguided (and bordering on impudent) to try to "play down" the importance of the Sun by giving it a cold and morally-neutral name (i.e., "Sol.") It is our Sun, it was created for us, and so it is not "Sol" or "a sun", it is "the Sun." Lock, stock, and barrel.
Of course, it should come as no surprise that "Sol" has become more and more popular in a country where a woman can walk into any corner drugstore and purchase RU-486 (an active abortificant), but that doesn't mean that we should just sit back and accept it without debate and discourse.
That's okay... most conservatives I've encountered aren't actually interested in conserving traditions that are historically valued, they only want to conserve their comfortable childhoods.
In other words, they want to keep everything as it was "in the good old days."
do for the push for the Europa/Pluto probe? http://www.planetary.org/html/UPDATES/Pluto/pluto_ europa_action.html
This lobster was alive when it hit the frothy, boiling water.
Hooray, our solar system is finally metric!
quoaroarar??
sounds fuckin retarted to me... i wanna punch the idiot who thought that one up
From their FAQ:
"kwah-o-wahr"
Also in the news, the Tongva and Eastern Europe have agreed to a letter exchange. The Tongva will export vowles and import consinents, making their language and many Eastern European languages pronouncable.
What about Ixion (original name 2001 KX76)? When this was discovered into 2001 they said the size was between 1200 and 1400 km. Seems like that would probably be larger than this new one.
And OS X is the only commercial unix I've seen that doesn't include it.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
> Of course, it should come as no surprise that "Sol" has become more and more popular in a country where a woman can walk into any corner drugstore and purchase RU-486
Uhh, "Sol" is latin for "Sun"? So what does it have to do with your bugbear (moral relativism)?
Is calling "God" "Deus" also "moral relativism" in your book?
Or are you saying that your God created the world in English, so obviously the proper, root, term for "Sol" is "the Sun"?
Of is your crusade just against anything you heard people saying outside of church?
Excellent work!
I'll bet you didn't expect anyone to pick up on that, but euphonious was the Word of the day for Sept 5th, 2002.
Sometimes I cry myself to sleep.
Synergy is your friend
I think the chance of finding additional Pluto-sized planets is much lower than you suggest.
Clyde Tombaugh found Pluto in 1930. He continued searching the sky for planets at Lowell Observatory until 1943. In his own words,
(source: Tombaugh, C.W., The Trans-Neptunian Planet Search. In "Planets and Satellites", Kuiper & Middlehurst (ed.s), University of Chicago Press, 1961.)So is this another planet that the Sumerians knew about 5000 years ago? Yeah, those ancient peoples who created the first civilizations, written language, mathematics, and astronomy.
Cheers,
Mzilikazi
Random Musings at Rum Smuggler
Why do they even bother trying to find planets around other stars when they're still finding them around this one?
for me to poop on!
Anyone know if soemone finally gave name to Planet X or is this something else? Do we really have 11 planets or did Planet X disappear? HELLO WORD WE STILL HAVE PLANET X!
You know the old board game IQ 2000? The tenth planet there was called "Quizzar." Funny how they gave it a name it that sounds like "Quizzar."
is of course, that the planet Rupert has finally been discovered.
Let the monitoring begin.
-JT
(and for those that are completely missing the reference, pick up the Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide and get a little cultured)
Well, hell, then I guess the booger I picked this morning is a planet too.
-- (Score:i, Imaginary)
Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon
the very elusive underkohling? It's only a matter of time before they find the gates.
Everyone knows the 10th planet is already called Mondas... and if you want to change it, you're gonna have to go wave some gold at a bunch of Cybermen.
Hmm, ten planets. This renders useless all those messages we've sent for aliens to find... the ones where a sun is shown with nine planets orbiting it, and a humanoid figure shown near the third one.
Zok: Hey, this looks like the place from the message, check it out: humanoids, single sun...
Glork: Oh wait though, there are ten planets. Let's keep looking.
Klork: Drat! I was so looking forward to bestowing the technological gift of perfectly realistic virtual porn on yet another race.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Actually I just like the word "euphonious". It's one of my favorite words. Along with snollygoster. And cachet.
Read Bujold. Free (as in
It gets even trickier. If we call 'larger bodies' orbiting the sun 'planets' then the Moon qualifies just as well as Pluto.
The Moon's orbit remains concave toward the Sun at all points. At no point does the Earth pull the Moon away from the Sun and toward itself. The force of gravity between Sun and Moon always exceeds that between the Earth and Moon.
We would probably do better to consider Terra-Luna a double planet, with the orbit of the less massive component, Luna, strongly perturbed by the more massive component, Terra. (Terra's orbit gets perturbed by the Moon, too, but less noticeably.)
From our point of view, the Moon's orbit appears tightly wrapped around the Earth. From a point of view high above the ecliptic, we would see the Earth and the Moon orbit the sun at about 150 million km. The Moon would seem to wobble in and out, by a measly 0.4 million km, as it first trailed the Earth, then passed it on the outside, then crossed in front, then dropped back on the inside. That wobble proceeds so slowly and gently, however, taking fully 1/13th of an orbit, that you'd never see the Moon's path kink into a loop. It would remain a smooth curve around the Sun. Ergo, the Moon doesn't orbit the Earth, but the Sun.
If a little math doesn't scare you, check out this more detailed explanation.
I didn't work this out myself, by the way. Asimov wrote about it, a good twenty-odd years ago. I forget where I read his essay.
If we let MS name it, it would be Planet2002!
Or would that be PlanetXP... Maybe just XP for 10th Planet...
Did someone name this "planet" after watching the episode of Red Dwarf where Rimmer thinks he's discovered a pod from Quagaar? (sp?)
You'd think they could name it something pronounceable, like 'Bob'...
Moo
we are asking the wrong question when we query
"how many planets in the solar system?"
simply we should ask
Q : "how many inner planets are there?"
A : 4 - mercury, venus, earth, mars
and
Q : "how many gas giants are there?"
A : 4 - jupiter, saturn, uranus, neptune
these two questions are more meaningful
and the answers 100% accurate
I thougt "The Tenth Planet" was called Mondas.
Resistance, though futile, is encouraged nevertheless.
Another trendy name by guilt-ridden, liberal Whites that no one will be able to correctly pronounce. I guess this confirms they are open-minded, progressive and not euro-centric, right? Couldn't these enlightened White liberals just adopted a black baby instead of causing an eternity of confusion on how to pronounce this tongue twisting eye sore?
I think i'll just call this new planet GALILEO. Why name it after a tribe, who did ABSOLUTELY nothing to advance celestial knowledge because some people have developed a guilt complex?
The Chineses have their own names for all the planets. So do just about ever other group of people in the world but they all tend to use their English versions of the Roman names when publishing about them in English.
Oops, make that Ten. Imagine our granchildren telling their children about the time in history when the Nine became Ten.
(oof, no sleep and something something make matt unfunny. unfunnier. whatever.)
What is the problem with these scientist types ? Why can't they name them after their girlfriends or bitch of an ex wife.
:-(
Oh - they don't have any
Well why not their cat, or dog, or goldfish ?
Oh, they died from neglect.
Well, its a bloddy big tombstone and to far away to visit !!
I pity the poor school kids who have to spell this baby out (they should have just called it 'Fred').
This name sounds a lot like those generated pseudorandomly in the classic Elite game.
- Varuna was discovered in 2000 and measures 1,000 kilometers in diameter. .. and Quaoar itself has actually been imaged in 1982 - 2001 but not detected as a planet until now. How embarassing. :-)
- Ixion was discovered in 2001 and is thought to be of similar size as Quaoar and Varuna.
-
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
From now on, Pluto will be known as...
"The Planet Formerly Known As Pluto",
or TPFKAP for short.
If anyone can think up a suitably ridiculous symbol, post it.
One of the things that clinches Pluto's status as a planet for me (besides the fact that I saw Clyde Tombaugh, discoverer of pluto speak when I was little) is that it's tough to categorize as a Kuiper belt object for one simple reason: it appears to be made out of different stuff. The albedo of Pluto suggests a different composition than all the wacky little things flying around past its orbit. I'm curious to see a report on what they think Quaoar is made of before a definitive declaration is made....
-Wombat
It is how pirates call each other "queer" in Pirate High School.
"Arrr, thar bloke ain't nuttin' butta fucken quaoar"
Table-ized A.I.
Anyone else immediately think of the Quagaars? Red Dwarf Season 4: Wating for God
When are we going? REAL SOON!
All praise John Wharfin!
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
DAMNIT! Wheres the Cowboy Neal option?
Who do you have confidence in? Man, or that imaginery person in the sky?
Do you know what the latest pirate movie was rated?
It was rated "Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr"
This is why Apple Computer is not allowed to name planets... :-)
Sean Daugherty "I have walked in Eternity -- and Eternity weeps."
Can we send that Nsync kid up there tomorrow?
If you think
The 10th planet...Planet Mondas!
The cybermen are coming. Quick, everybody get your gold dust and arm your glitter guns!
For love and justice, I am the pretty sailor suited warrior, Sailor Quaoar! I will right wrongs and triumph over evil, and that means you!
And because Quaoar is named after a Native American God from a tribe near Los Angeles, Sailor Quaoar's attack could be none other then...
"Quaoar Sticky Tar Pit!"
144l. ph34r my 133t l3g4l 5k1lz!
But I think we should call it Yuggoth. And then stay the hell away from it lest we find a lake where puf't shoggoths play
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
We're going there REAL SOON
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
No, Google, I didn't mean to search for "quasar".
Edith Keeler Must Die
Haha, I wonder if anyone failed to notice that this planet has two apparent sizes.. One is 1,280 (800 miles) and the other is 1250. I am curious of how this came about in the same article that is only a paragraph long.. HAHA.
yes, this is all a hoax so someone can cheat at scrabble.
Pluto's orbit reaches 39.5 AU from the Sun. Sorry.... HEHE. I like your article... What would Quaoar look like? I have a scale model hanging from my ceiling.
"Today The International Astrologers Cul, er Organization made a statement saying that Quaoar was indeed the reason why all of those predictions that they had continuously bungled were off. In the meantime, they stated that your horoscope today would be plagued with trying to figure out where in the hell the name Quaoar originates from, or more precisely, who pulled it out of their arse."
This picture is an artists interpretation...
They could have named it "Ogg Quaoar".
In the future, if we have an excess of vowels that needs to be dealt with, could we export them to Croatia or some other vowel-starved nation instead of inflicting them upon a harmless planet?
The articles state clearly: "... and is the biggest find in the Solar System since Pluto itself 72 years ago...". I'm sure this refers to the object's size, not to the relative importance of the discovery.
According to the IAU, as of 1999, the issue was settled. Pluto is both a planet and a member of the group tentatively called "Trans-Neptunian Objects" -- essentially close Kuiper belt objects.
"No further debate is planned on this issue."
"Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped." --Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915)
Resistance is useful.
It's capacitance that's futile!
Wouldn't he want it to be called Yuggoth?
Let's call it Hercules!
I heard somewhere (I dont remember where) that Planet X could have been a part of another solar system. Even though this doesn't make sence since we would probably notice a such nearby star. Is there a type of solar system that can just orbit around somthing else?
Sig: I stole this sig.
Could this be a turning point in our definition of a planet? What type of criteria will we look for in future explorations of planets? How many more are there? Why is the mass of this planet, in relationship to our Sun so "non-Capernican? or relational as to make it special?" -Noah
All of the major planets are named for Roman gods
Except Earth, which is named after dirt.
If they were named by Greeks then how come the names are Latin? I'm curious why thy want to name this puny ice ball after a god that sounds bigger than Saturn or Jupiter.
Play Command HQ online
Hell, the same thing happened in "Office Space." This is how Computer Scientists get a bad name.
And it's a tool for the olod invasion of earth! Damn Olodians!
Can't find the referances off hand, but IIRC, the ancient Sumerian's and possibly others had traditions of there being 10 planets in our solar system. Although the evidence may be open to interpretation, it is still an interesting claim. A quick go at google got me http://seekers.100megs6.com/ufoman4.htm, which has a bit of information on it. Anyone got a more reliable url ?
'gues that would be http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/05/im ages/021007_quaoar.jpg (without the space in /im ages/)
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Discover your own (solar) system!
As you say, a weak point. Really, there is no point at all (in even looking at T-B). T-B is just some strange series which happened to work out closely enough for the first few planets. You mention yourself "Neptune's irregularity." It's more like "Neptune's confirming the fact that T-B is a load of BS".
Then again, those who believe in T-B probably also believe that Newton's law of Gravitation holds for *everything*. sigh.
Lol... I didn't mean That good Doctor
Yeah, I know. Let me get the URL right this time.
That's senior high physics and math, if not even lower level... You don't need to be a physicist to do that.
... and that should be even easier for you to check than it would be for the physicist, just dig it up from the 'net.
Not that there was anything wrong with calculation, but base information
Holy cow, you have opened my eyes. Thanks for clearing that up. Things which were unknown to me are now known. You have expanded my horizons with insight into things which could not be more obvious if they were on set on fire in a gun powder factory.
I thought that the only thing "verified" that lies beyond pluto that could possibly be a planet was actually plutos moon, or was Pluto its moon?
>> If they were named by Greeks then how come the names are Latin?
Uhhh... because the Romans took their gods from the Greek pantheon and renamed them. You didn't know this?
That's an interesting observation! Even Apple's previous commercial Unix, "A/UX," included an X server called "MacX."
And to be fair, if you count NeXTSTEP as a commercial Unix separate from OS X, it also didn't include X11.
Except many stars may not have planets around them.
Poor, cold little pluto, their all so mean to you, :-( ::: , there, there, don't cry little (planet, ummm thingy) we still love you.
in my life God comes first.... but Linux is pretty high after that
Francis Smit
I don't know what to make of this, except to point out two things. There can be some forms of analysis that may have some valid elements even if not all of it is valid. (Then again, I don't know if astrology has any validity yet, but something like this bothers me.) And that we shouldn't always immediately dismiss someone's ideas every time even if we think they are a crackpot.
I think one of the really crackpot ideas that professional physicians were dismissing was the idea that diseases were passed around by tiny organisms we could not see, and that it was a good idea for a physician doing an autopsy to wash his hands before tending to other sick patients so as not to transfer the disease carrying organisms from the dead to the sick, or even to the well. Semelweiss was routinely criticized as being a crackpot who didn't know what he was talking about. We now know that he was.
Now, of course, the converse, of humongous numbers of really crackpot ideas being exactly that can't be ignored either. But occasionally, they aren't.
Paul Robinson < postmaster@paul.washington.dc.us>
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
so what is the orbit of the socalled tenth planet? is it in proportion to the other planets orbits? or does it have a "special" orbit, like a comet.
Here is a link to 2001 KX76 last year's big Kuiper belt object. And here is some more background infor on the Kuiper belt in general.