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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."
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!
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
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!"
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
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.
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
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.
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
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
- 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.Why abandon a perfectly good naming convention? How about Vulcan?
Slashdotter are stupid and biased.
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.
is made up of nine planets .... er ... Our solar system is made up of ten planets ...
It is sometimes said by astronomers that our solar system is made up of the Sun, Jupiter, and bunch of other little clutter. The mass of the rocky planets, and even the smaller gas giants is dismal compared to Jupiter.
The borderline between planet and asteroid is blurry. We might as well stop counting at Pluto out of tradition. However, if something bigger than Pluto is found out there, then the debate will heat up again.
Hmmmmm. I wonder if the Sun is even the brightest star out at the distance of Qu...... whatchmacallit. I would guess that it still is. Although Sun is not a big star, Q is still far closer to it than others.
Table-ized A.I.
Another vote for Qwerty. So easy to type, no wonder it's #1!
If you had nuts on your chin, would they be chin nuts?
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.)
Roman gods? No. Quaoar was the name of the one and only god in the mythology of one particular native american tribe, the name of which escapes me. For some reason, I remember this fact from freshman year anthropology.
Besides, I hereby announce that I'm taking bets. The official name of this body-- if it ever gets one-- will be Persephone.
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
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.
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
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
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.
Found this on google:
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
As for Persephone, isn't there already a celestial body with that name? One of the moons of Saturn or Uranus? Ahh, here it is...an Asteroid. My personal vote is for Kali.
---- El diablo esta en mis pantalones! Mire, mire!
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
"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?
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.
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.
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
That its "Rupert"
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
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
I'm pretty certain that it's about 12 light hours to Jupiter, but my reference is my foggy memory of some dusty Arthur C. Clarke books. It's not like it would be tough to figure it out. The article mentioned 6x10^9 kilometers, so at a rate of 3x10^5 m/s (light speed, no?) it would be 55.56 light hours from the sun, a little over two Earth days.
Or would that be Microsoft Planet XP (TM)?
That is all.
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:
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.
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
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
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.
Mercury: Roman
Venus: Roman
Mars: Roman
Jupiter: Roman
Saturn: Roman
Neptune: Roman
Uranus: Roman
Pluto: Roman
Quaoar: Some tiny Native American tribe from the LA area. So obscure, Google only has one hit for the Karma Whores to link to, and suggests that you must be asking about quasars.
If you break a convention and wait long enough, you create a new one, so in that sense you are correct, or at least will be if the new name sticks long enough.
Personally, I'm still irritated at US coins with people other than dead presidents on them, let alone selecting diverse pantheons for naming our planets, but then I'm just a stuffy old conservative.
As Homer would say, "I like my planets roman, my beer American, and by queers fuh-laming!"
Uh... that would be the cartoon Homer, obviously, not the one who wrote the Illiad and... oh fuck, what am I saying? This is slashdot. Most of the people here can recite seasons 1-5 of the Simpsons by rote, but have never read anything that wasn't published in English first, unless you count the stupid made-up slang of Gibson's "Neuromancer" as another language.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Suggestion: Planet Kwyjibo.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
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?
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)
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
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
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.
That means Prot really was an alien
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.
By definition planets orbit the Sun, thus Jupiter's moons are not planets as they orbit Jupiter.
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."
Actually, this newly found celestial body is not a planet at all, much less a "10th planet" ... It's just a Kuiper belt object, which happens to be rather large. Quaoar further strengthens the theory that Pluto is not a conventional planet but rather a Kuiper Belt object.
Ten planets? Eight? In either case, it won't matter for at lest 20 more years, when the schools finally getting around to updating their textbooks.
You know, this makes me think. People get all bent out of shape about trying to detect asteroids hell-bent on destroying the earth, and we are just now finding an entire freaking planet(oid). 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.
Thomas Galvin
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.
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.
My Very Energetic Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas Quickly
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
We could use Mercury as the basis and grand-father Pluto in. Pluto doesn't really seem to deserve it, from what I've read. However, it now has social merits to being a planet even if the scientific merit is questionable.
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
H.P. Lovecraft writing about the discovery of Pluto in a letter dated April 1st 1930:
One wonders what it is like, & what dim-litten fungi may sprout coldly on its frozen surface! I think I shall suggest its being named Yuggoth!
Selected Letters III (p. 136)
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
We'll have none of that! You leave the facts out of this!
And puts another Stonehenge in my backyard?
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
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.
Didn't you see Armageddon?
Besides, if God decides to whack us with a rock, he'll have decided several billion years ago. There doesn't seem to be a lot that changes unexpectedly up there (save the occasional asteroid collision.)
Oh, and we'll be able to sell lots of commemorative t-shirts, magazines, and specially colored ribbons for the occasion. Go America!
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
- 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!
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.
Moon2.com. If only it were 1999, this would already be funded!!
The convention is overwhelmingly for Roman deities. With the exception of Earth, all the planets are named after figures from the Greek/Roman pantheon, using the Roman names: Mercury, Venus, [Earth], Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto.
My vote is for Minerva, if it's not already taken.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Some asteroids are now known to have satellites of their own...
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."
Didn't you see Armageddon?
;-)
I caught the parts with Liv Tyler in them, yes.
Besides, if God decides to whack us with a rock, he'll have decided several billion years ago. There doesn't seem to be a lot that changes unexpectedly up there (save the occasional asteroid collision.)
Fair enough, I suppose. The Revelation already tells us He decided to whack us with a rock (two of them, actually).
Oh, and we'll be able to sell lots of commemorative t-shirts, magazines, and specially colored ribbons for the occasion. Go America!
"It is times like these that make us realize it is not whether you are a Republican or a Democrate, but an Amer....hey, waitaminute, we're all gonna die, right? Screw this, yeah, I am sleeping with my intern. What are you going to do, not re-elect me?"
Thomas Galvin
Finally, a space program that makes sense! In other news, I'll be refferring to everything past Neputune as "trans-Neputnian bodies".
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
The thing that grates on my ear is when people refer to "other Solar systems". I think it should be "other stellar systems".
Actually, asdf is easier to type because the letters are on the home row. Maybe the 11 planet could be named AOEU.
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
Isn't the Halley's Comet then also a planet? Or how about crommelin?
Or how is it with Charon? Can you really say it's a moon of pluto? I mean the difference in masses is not that great, actually you could also say it are two planet orbiting around each other, while orbiting around sun.
I think to recall there is also some comet orbiting the sun, somewhere between saturn and uran, or other two planets, currently considered to be an comet, but it's as large as pluto. etc.
--
Karma 50, and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt.
From their FAQ:
"kwah-o-wahr"
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.)On the other hand, the sun has been called Sol for much longer than it has the sun, and as such is the reason why we name them solar eclipses, solar systems, solarized films, etc.
Language is *flexible*.
For the same reason that 'Photoshopping' is a verb, 'Sol' is the name of our sun. People use it, and the term sticks.
In a similar vein:
Sol
Luna
boxen
unices
Linux (over GNU/Linux)
Doh
phat
slashdotted
owned/0wnz3d
GPL Deconstructed
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.
Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon
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
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
- 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!
Planet Goatse
Actually, the Saturnian moon "Mimas" best fits the title of the Goatse Planet, or Goatse Moon.
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap950924.html
Table-ized A.I.
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
Can we send that Nsync kid up there tomorrow?
If you think
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)
No, Google, I didn't mean to search for "quasar".
Edith Keeler Must Die
yes, this is all a hoax so someone can cheat at scrabble.
They could have named it "Ogg Quaoar".
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)
Indeed. I have recently refined my position.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
Having a great deal in common with other trans-Neptunian Kuiper Belt objects, few astronomers consider Pluto to be a planet at all.
Well, we should probably wait until we know more about those things way out there. The Pluto/Kuiper probe scheduled to reach the area in 20 or so years will hopefully shed more light on the question.
Thus, please leave Pluto alone until we look at some of them closer up.
Perhaps toss the word "planet" entirely. We have big balls of stuff, small balls of stuff, and lots of stuff in-between. Only stars are clear-cut (so far) because you either atomically convert hydrogen or you don't. There is not much in-between.
I suppose "gas giant" is clear-cut in our solar system, but maybe not in others.
I hope fights don't break out in astronomy class like the kind evolution/creation debates trigger.
Table-ized A.I.
I thought it was "de zon", "le soleil" or "die Sonne". Maybe "Sol" has something to do with a reference which surpasses local language?
Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
Nah, you screwed up the analagy.
"Sol" is the name of our local star not because of the flexibility of a language, but because the choice of which language to use is flexible.
Not to say that a language cannot be flexible, especially a "living" language. Be it jargon, regional dialect or slang, slashdotted, boxen, phat can become viable.
The same isn't true for "Linux" over GNU/Linux. You don't call an apple an "orange" and say that it is correct because language is flexible, without some extreme application of poetic license. You also don't call a star "the Moon", a tree an "apple" or call a GNU OS "Linux".
Now you might call a potato an "apple of the earth" or a lime a "lemon", but that would be anoter instance where the choice of language is flexible, not where the language itself should be corruptibly flexible.
If you hate the term GNU/Linux, then just call it GNU. Nobody know's what you are talking about? then call it "GNU with Linux". If they don't know what GNU is, then they probably have no idea what a kernel is, so there is no point in talking about Linux anyway. Say "free Windows alternative".
Now do you really say "zero-w'nz-three-d"? That isn't really flexibility in language, that is "clever" dissafection, like "womyn". Heavy handed and artificial mutations don't illustrate the flexibility of language, but the speaker's need for attention.
Actually, there ARE very clear cut in-between stages.
First, you can start converting hydrogen, without fully completing the pp cycle (and blowing up into a star). These are brown dwarves, though they are currently loosely defined via mass. You generate SOME heat this way, but not enough to start a full blown thermonuclear burn.
There's a division between "star" and "planet" - we've got a name for it already, thankfully ("brown dwarf"). There's a clear division between "planet" and "other crap" as well - gravity. Below a certain mass, gravity can't pull an object into a sphere for rocky objects. Thus, asteroids are asteroids because they're aspherical. Note that this makes Ceres a planet, I believe - no big deal.
So:
"star": an object which completes the pp cycle or a later thermonuclear burn.
"brown dwarf": an object which can begin, but not complete, the pp cycle.
"gas giant planet": an object containing a planet with most of its volume made up of gaseous material. (Gas giant planets have solid cores... we think).
"planet": a spherical or semispherical rigid body which orbits a point located inside of a star, and NOT a point located inside another non-stellar object.
"trojan planets": any set of spherical or semispherical bodies which orbit a point located inside a star, and a point in empty space.
"moon": any sizable body which orbits a point located inside a planet.
That's a good set of working definitions.
Earth-Moon is definitely not a double planet - you can EASILY define a double-planet system as a system of "larger bodies" where the center-of-mass of the system is in empty space. The Moon orbits the Earth. The Earth does not orbit the Moon - it orbits itself (the center-of-mass of the system is inside the Earth.)
Does the Moon orbit the Sun? No. It orbits the Earth. The Moon's "path" around the Sun is a very perturbed ellipse. The Earth's path, however, is a perfect ellipse - if you consider the little patch of "Earth" that is the center-of-mass of the Earth-Moon system.
The problem that you're describing - that from a Sun-stationary point of view, the Moon doesn't look like it's orbiting the Earth - isn't a good argument for the fact that the Moon doesn't orbit the Earth. This fact is true for any object thats orbital period is a significant fraction of the solar year. There are several satellites that would have this same problem!
The easiest way to ask "what is the Moon orbiting?" is to try to describe its motion as an ellipse about something. That "something" is what it's orbiting - and it would be the center-of-mass of the Earth-Moon system, slightly perturbed by the Sun. The center-of-mass of the Earth-Moon system is inside the Earth. Hence the Moon orbits the Earth.
You cannot describe the Moon's orbit as an ellipse about the Sun.
There's a clear division between "planet" and "other crap" as well - gravity. Below a certain mass, gravity can't pull an object into a sphere for rocky objects. Thus, asteroids are asteroids because they're aspherical. Note that this makes Ceres a planet, I believe - no big deal.
Okay, I don't know enough about nuclear fusion/fission to question your brown-dwarf distinctions. However, "spherical" is a very continuous metric. No planet is perfectly spherical. I am sure some sort of cut-off could be devised for it, but it would be an arbitrary constant.
IOW, the asteroid/planet distinction is *still* not solved.
Table-ized A.I.
Somebody must have been impressed by it. I don't play video games and have been using it since long before Warcraft III came out. :-)
I'm flattered.
There should be a moratorium on the use of the apostrophe.
Max V.
NeXTMail/MIME Mail welcome
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.
Sol is the Latin word for "Sun". The Greek term, by the way, would be ho Helios, "the Sun." Likewise Luna and he Selene for the Moon.
Not really - saying "arbitrary" is a little much. The question is not its sphericity, but its mass in comparison to its composition. What you're curious about is whether or not the planet is held together by intermolecular forces, or gravitational forces. It's pretty clear cut, to be honest - either a planet is semispherical or it isn't semispherical. While it's true there will be planets "near" the boundary between the two, there will be brown dwarves close to stellar mass ("occasionally" completing the pp cycle), gas giants close to brown dwarf mass ("occasionally" running a few bits of fusion), etc.
There are ALWAYS "arbitrary" cutoffs when you supply a definition, even if the definition appears clear-cut. However, using "of enough mass to pull itself into a sphere" solves the problem of not having a distinction between planets and asteroids. Right now it's "big" and "little", completely arbitrary as to which one. If you use sphericity, yes, there will be an "arbitrary" cutoff, but there will be a motivation behind it - the point at which self-gravitational forces dominate over intermolecular.
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.
Objects will only pull themselves into a sphere if gravity overcomes the intermolecular forces binding the object together. If it doesn't, they pull themselves into an aggregate sphere - that is, a loose collection of small particles, which is easy enough to distinguish: the density of the object will be less than the density of its composite materials. This is a kind of "inverse Roche limit" for an object. Gaseous objects will easily pull themselves into a sphere, but I didn't say gaseous - I said solid, and in fact, you could simply say "metallo-silicate" and be done. Solar system objects aren't made of "just about anything" - they're made of rock (silicon/iron), gas (hydrogen, etc.), and ice (comets). and even the gas giants have solid cores (most likely). Comets don't have a chance of pulling themselves into a sphere, as the intermolecular forces on ice are quite damned strong.
As per Earth smacked by a large enough body: Earth was smacked by a Mars sized body, and still stayed (mostly) together. If the Earth is smacked by a body much larger, or with much force, and it doesn't stay together, then it wouldn't be a planet anymore, would it? It'd be a big ring of debris orbiting the Sun for a few million years, and then a planet again when it coalesced.
The only rocky objects in the solar system that have pulled themselves into a sphere are the planets, several moons, and Ceres. On every other object in the solar system, intermolecular forces dominate over gravity.