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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.
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...
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
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?
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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.
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.
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Support the Vowels For Bosnia campaign!
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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
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
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.
Uhh... It's since been discovered that there are most likely more than a few asteroids with satellites out there. We already know of several.
The earliest discovered one being Ida's satellite, Dactyl, which the Galileo probe took some very nice pictures of on its way to Jupiter.
It may make sense. Some good years ago, Dr. Van Flandern published several weird ideas about our solar system. He mentioned that some weirdnesses seen on certain asteroids pointed to the fact that they could have satellites. He was demonished for this theory but Galileo probe did find such an asteroid in its way to Jupiter. Sincerly, Pluto is too big for an asteroid and too small for a true planet. But still no one real could classify the real edge between planets and small bodies... So I wouldn't be admired to see this new object also bouncing between both terms.
For UFO manhunters/bashers: note that VF was once the director of the U.S. Naval Astronomy, and one of the guys who help find Charon. Since Richard Hoagland started to search for hyperpyramids in the closet, he suffered some bad publicity, but still, his researches are quite important because they are in the edge of Science and some have had positive results recently.
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.
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
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.
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?
No, they are probably afraid of naming it Nemesis - the Death Star. There are some theories about the Sun having an older sister in the form of a brown dwarf. Some consider alternatively the existence of a planet somewhat bigger than Jupiter. They use these theories to explain the episodical extinctions on Earth, supposedly caused by swarms of Kuiper belt comets falling inside the Solar system. This hypothetical "star/planet" is supposed to be much far away than Quaoar. Some theories give its orbit the fantastic period of 3 million years, and some consider it the reason why we can't find it...
Well, probably some academical SF. They, sometimes, are also good writers...
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
New DS9 tongue twister:
Quark, Queue me up a Quick Quart of Quaoar
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:
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
Suggestion: Planet Kwyjibo.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
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
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."
Pluto is the threshold case. At the moment, it seems to be the conventional wisdom that anything found that's larger than Pluto will have to be considered for planet status, and anything smaller for planetoid/asteroid/comet status. Quaoar would thus not be a planet. But who knows? The important thing is that a solar system can have these kinds of objects:
Stars (Sun)
Brown dwarfs (none known in our system)
Gas giants (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune)
Terrestrial planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars)
Asteroids (Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, etc.)
Kuiper-like objects (Pluto, Quoaoar, maybe Chiron)
Comets (maybe Chiron, Halley, etc.)
Terrestrial moons (the Moon, Io, Europa, Titan, Iapetus)
Kuiper-like-object-like moons (Charon, maybe Triton)
Asteroid-like moons (Phobos, Deimos, Amalthea)
Dust lanes and planetary rings
Protostars, protoplanets, protoplanetary disks
etc.
As you can see, the star/planet/asteroid/comet/moon classification isn't quite detailed enough for what we now know.
And puts another Stonehenge in my backyard?
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Didn't the term for small planets used to be "planetoid"? Just above an asteroid, or just below a planet, seems to be the appropriate terminology...
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
- 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.
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Moon2.com. If only it were 1999, this would already be funded!!
Feh. Astrology accounted for Chiron when it was discovered back in the seventies. For that matter, astrology accounted for Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto after their respective discoveries. Whether you believe in astrology or not, you can count on people writing papers and books to describe what effects Quaoam (or Qualcomm, or whatever. . . damn, what a forgettable name for a planet) will have on their personal lives.
. . .or maybe astrology won't account for it. Most astrologers still don't account for precession of the earth's axis and the presence of Ophiucus in the Zodiac. . . so ya never know.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
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.
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain
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
Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon
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.
- 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!