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Another Big Kuiper Belt Object Found

Posted by Cliff on from the oy-plutino! dept.

DoraLives observes: "According to the BBC a Huge rock-ice body circles Sun. At a shade over 350 miles across, it's not what you'd call planetary in size, but huge enough, I suppose, should it land in your back yard."

10 of 36 comments (clear)

  1. Units? by Cyno01 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Miles? Its a celestial body, use proper standard units, either multiples of texas or volkswagons.

    --
    "Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
    1. Re:Units? by zhenlin · · Score: 3, Interesting

      0.00000376522681 AU
      0.0000000000595389999 LY

      2,279,474,440,000 litres/acre
      148 800 297 Pascals per Newton US gallons
      6,021,734,370,000,000 ((US gallon per hectare) per (Pascal per Newton)) per acre

      Let's invent more compound measures, shall we?

      1 ((the speed of light per ((((Newton per Pascal) per Joule) per year) per fortnight)) per (mach 1)) = 3.36285379 x 10^19 kilograms

    2. Re:Units? by Nos. · · Score: 2, Funny
      Where I live (Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada), they've recently finished draining the lake/creek in town. The radio reported that the lake was draining at a rate of one stove per second.

      I propose that for volumes less than one Library Of Congress, we measure volumes in household appliances.

  2. on the other hand... by LeninZhiv · · Score: 2, Funny

    but huge enough, I suppose, should it land in your back yard

    If your backyard has somehow found its way to the Kuiper belt, you've got problems of your own!

  3. Nicknaming the Rock by GrahamMastaFlash · · Score: 4, Funny
    Did anybody else notice that scientists nicknamed the rock "Plutino" after our ninth planet?

    In order to generate public interest in this story, I think "Pluto's bitch" might be more engaging. Or perhaps "the victim of Neptune's drunken advances"

  4. "Plutino" is not a nickname by gargleblast · · Score: 5, Informative
    It's a reporting mistake.

    All objects in 3:2 orbital resonance with Neptune are classified as plutinos, after the largest known such object, Pluto.

    1. Re:"Plutino" is not a nickname by ForestGrump · · Score: 3, Funny

      aah, reporting the news.
      just like the weatherman, you can be wrong and its OK.

      -Grump

      --
      Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
  5. Size doesn't matter, or does it? by barakn · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Couldn't help but notice that the BBC says it has a diameter of 570 km. (which probably came from some American telling them 350 miles) and the original discoverers peg it at 700 km. or 400 miles. You might think that since the BBC was handed the scoop by the NEAT team (they have a link to the BBC article), they'd agree on the size.

    --
    "I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
  6. Re:On a more serious note.. by Cujo · · Score: 2, Informative

    You're not going to be taken seriously if you begin your posts with insults.

    --

    Helium balloons want to be free.

  7. Re:Free Water! by kippy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I don't know why this got modded as "offtopic". Granted it's flippant and not serious but if we terraform Mars or Venus, we'll need to do pretty much what this post says.

    Granted, we don't have the tech to do it right this minute but by the time any terraforming effort is undertaken, the technology will either exist or it will become reasonable to develop it.

    Not only does this object have water, but it probably has (literally) tons of ammonia and other useful compounds and elements. If that can be deposited into the Martian atmosphere, it will generate heat on entry, add pressure to the atmosphere and deliver the raw materials to manufacture some of the super-greenhouse gasses that will be needed.

    Check out this if you want to see more about this and other proposed terraforming tech.

    --
    Blaze a trail to the New World