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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."
No, this is further evidence that our solar system is made up of 8 planets and there are also a stack of Kuiper belt objects of various sizes. Pluto, just being a rather large and well known one.
Compared to a block of rock 1/2 the size of pluto?, even colder & further out? It shows large objects exists in the kuijper belt but thats nice to know, not at all in the same league as some other recent discoveries .
Of those to whom much is given, much is required.
Sure. IANAA, but the problem with Pluto isn't that astronomers have some personal grudge against Pluto, but that it's orbital details and composition don't fit the pattern set by the other planets. The orbit *is* way too elliptical, it's too eccentric (e.g. Pluto is closer to the sun than Neptune for a good part of its year) and it's on a weird angle with regard to the orbital plane set by the others. The rest of the solar system fits the pattern of small, rocky planets close in, big gassy planets farther out, with a bunch of tiny ice-balls way, way out.
When you compare Pluto to the various trans-Neptunian objects in the Kuiper Belt, though, it fits right in. Composition, orbit, distance, everything. Even if you want to get picky about Charon, there have been examples of small rocky bodies in mutual orbit in the asteroid belt, so a small moonlet of a small planetoid isn't that big of a deal.
I think astronomers are just tired of having to say, "... except for Pluto." when discussing the solar system's arrangment.
IMHO, Pluto was identified first because it is among the largest, if not *the* largest, of the trans-Neptunian objects, discovered using 19th century optical technology. Now that the lenses, cameras and data analysis tools are so much improved, objects of comparable size are starting to be identifed. This isn't to take away any historical significance from Pluto for being the first of its class to be observed, but I don't really consider it a really small planet, more of a really big planetoid.
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