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New Object Found at Edge of Solar System
Rei writes to tell us NewScientist is reporting that a new object has been found beyond Pluto. The new object, nicknamed "Buffy", has an almost circular orbit which is tilted some 47 degrees off of most other bodies in our solar system. From the article: "Neptune has been blamed for scattering many other [Kuiper Belt Objects] into tilted paths. But these tend to show other signs of a past interaction with the giant planet, such as moving in elliptical paths and having one part of their orbit pass near Neptune's at 30 astronomical units from the Sun. [Buffy], however, follows a nearly circular path. And it is too distant to have come into direct contact with Neptune, traveling between 52 and 62 AU from the Sun. Its orbit is also too circular - and too small - to have been tilted by a passing star."
Like, OMFG, it's Buffy!
... how many vampires has it slain? :-)
My work here is dung.
I, for one, welcome our new Vampire Slaying Alien Overlords.
Real programmers use "copy con program.exe"
Gateway here we come!!!!
Meh. They should call it Rupert.
Consider this to be my written complaint against this name. I'm too lazy to write a letter and figure out where to send it...
Just to point out that while few if any of these nicknames are going to stick once the IAU has a whack at it, we now have:
:)
Xena (and moon Gabrielle)
Easterbunny
Santa (and moon Rudolph, plus one unnamed)
Buffy
Am I missing any of the new wacky-named bodies?
Man on crucifix terrorizes church, demands they eat his flesh and blood. Details at 11.
I vote that we send Joss Whedon to explore this "Buffy."
Obviously it would take years, and stretch the bourndaries of tech and all that, but how much of a nerd dream would it be to get a decent probe out to the Kuiper Belt in say, 30 years. Accurately take stock of some of the larger planetary wannabes. Maybe I just cared too much in Astronomy class.
Bury me in mashed potatoes.
Tsk tsk. So typical of today's media. Always ready to play the blame-game.
My Greatest Heist - Muisc partly inspired by the unbeatable Qwantz
And I was supposed to take my warp-capable ship out past Mars so they could detect the warp signature..... crap.
It's not a new space object, it's a piece of lint on the telescope.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
Oops, I mean, KAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHNNNNN!!!!!!!!!
This is why nerds don't get to make real decisions for the most part. Scientists seemed to have slipped past the system. Only obesely pork-laden beaurocrats with ties to Saudi oil should get to make monumentous decisions like this.
Hey, at least they'll have cool names. Like "Blue thunder freedom falcon" or something.
Pluto and Xena... finally we found out there might be a few more planets to explore in the kuiper belt. buffy is probably a boring one. > 150 objects. So, no surprise, no sensation.
I've got a bad feeling about this.
"He ventures another possible explanation - that the Sun had a twin and that both stars followed circular orbits around each other"
2 problems with this.
1) Stars do not dissapear. They continue to have fusion on larger and larger elements until it hits a point it cannot generate enough heat to fuse the next one. None of our planets match the description of a dead star.
2) "Twin" stars are remarkably identical, and our sun has plenty of life left.
Maybe it's what SETI has been looking for. A probe just outside our planetary system that would be found (and later contacted) when we were good and ready. Could happen!
Picture of "Buffy" taken by the Voyager probe.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Wow! That's 52 times the distance between the sun and the earth (1 AE = 91 million miles) which places that object at a distance of 4.7Billion miles from the sun. Amazing to think that there actually exists any type of 'orbit' - makes me feel very very small...
And you know nothing of my work -Neptune
Article submitted and rejected yesterday. At least rejected stories make a good, albeit short, posts for my own blog.
Hosting 20G hd, 1Tb bw! ssh $7.95
Shoot it down, quick!
I've been looking all over for them! In all of my pants pockets, in my door, between the couch cushions. How did they get to the edge of the solar system?
Looks like Vader has found us again! Hope the planetary shields hold up.
http://religiousfreaks.com/If these astronomers are going for "bang" with their names, why not choose something offensive like a racial slur instead of something cute. Or name the planet after genitelia like Uranus. Planit Hizpenis or Jerbrest. If they don't care about going intellectual, why care about tact at all?
It seems to me like its either Disney or Fox who is getting the naming rights to these planets.
I am and always will be a stereotype, because who in their right mind prefers mono?
Thor is from Norse mythology.
I know you're no doubt being facetious, but on the off chance you're not, they'll probably use some other names from the Greek or Roman pantheon, just to keep things consistent, while the "official name" will be something exciting like "Planetoid # 459204765.9"
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
There's no V8 that far out.
Well, they could team up with International Star Registry and pick some lucky winners name at random when needed - at least a few kids would actually have objects named after them.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
"That's no moon."
-mj
The danger of this means of funding such exploration? Planet Microsoft...Google Galaxy....and AOL World.
Quick! Everybody drink the Koolaide!
Yes.. in old greek mythology, buffy the illegitimate daughter of thor who did sip the ambrosia and slay cerberus and then was expelled to the netheregion of the universe..
Dude, Thor is from the Norse pantheon. Otherwise, references are just about right.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
Take that brian Tanner's teacher!!!
Alf was right all along!
Eh. Most scientists don't view Kuiper objects as true planets, so I think that offering them the prestige of names from the greek pantheon irks a lot of astronomers.
So they fall back on geek culture. I think after object X became "Xena" it was inevitable.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
ThungderCougarFalconBird
Why not go for Norse names then.
I recommend old computer/video game system names.
We could have the Vic, Sinclair, Coco, Adam, VCS...
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Rupert, did you know that the word 'gullible' isnt in the dictionary? ...[passes dictionary to Rupert]... What's that, it ISNT? ...[takes dictionary]... Oh, Rupert, hoisted by my own petard! Haha! Haha!......I am so alone...
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
These traits make the object, nicknamed "Buffy" after the US television series about a vampire slayer, hard to explain. "Maybe Buffy is going to be a bit of a theory slayer," Allen told New Scientist.
That's about as far from being clever as "Buffy" is from the Sun...
how long until we redefine what the "edge" of the solar system is? since we keep finding new things further and further out.
are there objects outside the heliopause? would they be considered outside the solar system, or would that push the "edge" further still?
- Entertaining Bits from the Ancient Kernel Tree
I wonder if it is a captured Brown Dwarf, which wandered by our solar system millions of years ago, and got into an orbit around our Sol. Not to be confused with a Red Dwarf, which is only about a million years old as I understand it, and has holograms for people. As long as they were naming it for TV shows, they could have picked one that suited it better...
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
It probably got tilted by the gravitational pull of Michael Moore's ass.
> That's 52 times the distance between the sun and the earth - makes me feel very very small...
I could never understand such abjectly pitiful thinking. Why would anyone feel small while looking at big things? I always feel big and powerful for being able to imagine big things like the solar system. It truly makes one appreciate being human, when we can create such big ideas, travel so far, and sit astride a light year looking down at it like a plaything.
The United States government has just green-lit a project to send a ship to the edge of the solar system to study this new object. I hear that the scientists and other passengers will be cryogenically frozen during the long trip and that the pilots will be assisted by Microsoft's latest breakthrough in artificial intelligence: Computer Lifeforce Intelligent Pilot Project: Year 9000 edition, or C.L.I.P.P.Y 9000 for short.
No one cares what your captcha was
Houston TX, USA
Well, all the stakeholders of the project get their turn in the naming.
I'm too lazy to read the article or to look up past slashdot posts, but hasn't this been discovered before? It seems like every few months scientists come out with a new "planet" beyond Pluto. Are they all "discovering" the same one, or are we up to ten objects beyond Pluto that also circle our sun?
[ ]
A planetoid-sized object has been discovered hurtling toward Earth. Scientists expect it to impact with a force adequate to exterminate all life on the planet. The discoverer has named the object 'Tinkerbell'.
And it will cost $15 billion to get it back. Boy, I hope your name is Bill Gates.
Ffffffuuuuuccccckkkkkooooooooovvvvvvvv!!!!!!!!!
It's Rama!
Question everything
- Planet Bob (Titan AE)
- Melmac (ALF)
- K-PAX (K-PAX)
- Omicron Persei 8 (Futurama)
I think Carl Sagan said in the Cosmos series that it would not be unlikely that coming generations would name constellations (and other celestial objects) after their interest; home appliances, radio telescopes, mushrooms clouds. What does the name 'Buffy' say about us?nine puffy balloons.
Le français vous intéresse?
Now he's going to have to move Kobold.
"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
I, for one, welcome our new vampire slaying overlords.
Rhapsody in Numbers
Obviously that's Rupert they're talking about. It's been Rupert since 1992. See Mostly Harmless for details.
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Aslong as they dont name it Naruto I'll be OK with it
--Chag
now our great great grandchildren might look up at the heavens at the planet georgium bushus
sometimes historical ideas need to lie untouched
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Astronomers are used to heavenly bodies with zany and/or boring names, but think of the poor astrologers! Who will ever take them seriously when they say that someone has Buffy in scorpio, Santa in virgo, and Xena in pisces?
And whatever would such a horoscope indicate?
Curse you AQUUAAA SCUUUMMMM!!!
The days of the digital watch are numbered.
42! That's the question!
I am Spartacus
Is this another planet X then?
nicknamed "Buffy",
For crying out loud, people, they haven't named it Buffy! That's just what the people who discovered it called it! They'll probably change it to something more fitting in a while. In the meantime, you don't have to call it Buffy.
Hopefully, they will call the next one The Floating Island of Mandango.
http://newgrounds.com/portal/view/72146 for the reference.
This space unintentionally left blank.
I'm pretty sure this must have something to do with Planet X - and if it doesn't, just give it a year or two and soon it'll be all the rage on those late night radio shows...
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
I'd wondered where my wallet had gone.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
planets are more Roman than Greek
If by AE, you meant AU, then 1 AU is closer to 93 million miles (92 955 887.6 miles, to be more exact).
Planet Alamo, planet GMAC, planet Insight, planet MPC Computers, planet Meineke Car Care, planet Outback, planet Capital One, etc
Will Buffy be circling Uranus at any point?
(ba DUM dum)
"Curse you oh merciful Poseidon!"
Errr..."Curse you oh merciful Neptune"
I dunno about the average Slahxpert (say it out loud, it has a nice Futurama ring to it hehe) or "scientific media whore" but I'd define the edge of the solar system to be the heliosphere.
o yager_agu.html so I guess I'm wrong... at least on Slashdot ;)
NASA seems to agree http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solarsystem/v
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As far as I know, the only things that can circularize orbits are tidal forces and drag from gas, neither of which are significant in that region of the solar system. Possibly the orbit was perturbed twice, once by Neptune to put it in a highly inclined, highly elliptical orbit and once by another body (possibly a star or another KB object). That last one would have to occur at the right time and place, though, and would be quite rare. Maybe this is the freak of the solar system.
if Pluto is insanely cold (like a couple hunrded celsius below zero or something i think?) imagine how bitch ass cold it must be on this new "Buffy"
I have good Faith in that unless this is a Willow, she'll have a little Angel orbiting it called "Xander", that rises in the Dawn during its frosty winters as well as its icy Summers... Too bad there's not even an Oz. of hospitality to humans there, or it would be nice to visit this body, forever Chasing through space. :-p
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
First Xena, then Gabrielle and now Buffy? Somebody's watching too much TV...
And following the convention for naming bodies in the Kuiper Belt, they have suggested several Inuit names for the object to the International Astronomical Union.
Yes, Buffy is Inuit for "sexy walrus-hunting chick."
Find free books.
...it's not a new object - it's probably quite old.
Anyone else notice Firefox (1.5) crashing if you keep the article loaded for a while (say, a few minutes)? I do have the Adblock extension on, but I wouldn't think that would cause it....
car keys?
don't recall leaving them out there, but I know they're not in this house.
Well?
It's integrity.
That's where it went when it heard the Republicans were trying to find it in 1999.
Gateway.
Or is that too obscure?
Depends what you think gravity is. According to Einstein's general relativity theory, gravitation is an effect of spacetime curvature. Think of a rubber sheet with an object in the middle of it that has huge mass. It causes the sheet (space-time) to "sink" (deform) where the heavy object is located. Anything orbiting that object is actually caught in the depression the object makes in the sheet and lacks the energy (inertia) to break free.
The quantum physicists however seem to have a different take on things, postulating the existence of the graviton; a hypothetical elementary particle that transmits the force of gravity over any distance.
Personally (not being a physicist) the two ideas seem to be so far apart that either one could be right, but not both. I just hope I live long enough to see it proved one way or the other. Or maybe something new is waiting to be discovered. Whatever, Gravity remains one of science's greatest mysteries and obtaining a true understanding of it in relation to the other forces we know about, science's greatest challenge.
That makes 1,452 unknown objects discovered byond Pluto in the past 3 years.. ;-)
'mmmmmmmmm.... forbidden donut'
sorry, too busy eating a sticky date pi
See my art -> http://herbevore.deviantart.com
New Object Found at Edge of Solar System
It's actually the "Virgin Galactic".
> New Object Found at Edge of Solar System
That just proves it.
Our garbage collection engine sucks.
"...follows a nearly circular path. And it is too distant to have come into direct contact with Neptune..."
I suspect that any Kuiper Belt object that's come in direct contact with Neptune is now part of Neptune.
If you're going to use wiki markup do it right =\
My UID is prime... is yours?
Fucking Neptune.
I for one welcome our New Object overlord.
"Neptune has been blamed for scattering many other [Kuiper Belt Objects] into tilted paths."
That's not a very nice thing to say about Neptune. How would you feel if someone said that about you?
Shouldn't that be " the IBM Stellar Sphere, the Microsoft Galaxy, Planet Starbucks." ?
Maybe I am being dumb but why should a body orbiting differently then the rest of the bodies in a solar system be that odd. Maybe that is how it has always been. Just a thought
Isn't this object a bit early!! is it aproaching?
So THAT'S where I left my ship! Damnit, I knew it was around here somewhere. Thanks NASA!
It's been studied and exposed by this odd documentary.
;)
When you hear of a new NEO (near earth object) and they name it Thor's Hammer