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The Tenth Planet Shrinks Under Hubble's Gaze

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the under-the-microscope dept.

starexplorer2001 writes "An object called the 10th planet by some astronomers is not as large as previously thought. New images of 2003 UB313 (aka Xena) were delivered by the Hubble Telescope and showed up as only 1.5 pixels! Now, some are calling to demote Pluto and kill Xena."

11 of 318 comments (clear)

  1. Maybe... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Maybe it's all black except for a bright white spot.

  2. "...not as large as previously thought." by core+plexus · · Score: 4, Funny
    "I swear it's a foot long, it just shrank because of the cold of space!" --

    New Face discovered on Mars

  3. Anyone care to... by mrjb · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...post a link to the image?

    --
    Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
  4. Re:Only 68 miles bigger by RLiegh · · Score: 4, Funny

    As George Carlin said pollution; Earth will be fine. We might be fucked; but the earth will be A-OK.

  5. The Plan by suv4x4 · · Score: 3, Funny

    NASA secretly discovers disturbing facts about the nature of the tenth planet, and decides the news is too shocking for the wide audience. A plan is created to announce the news in several manageable bites:

    1. tenth planet not as big as previously thougth, it's more like a small planet, but hey it's a still a friggin 10-th planet, right!

    2. tenth planet not a planet as previously thougth, it's more like a moon of Pluto.. but it's still a friggin planet, if not THE 10-th planet...

    3. new moon not really a moon, turns out it's more like a really big meteor, so big, it's kinda as big as a moon, almost, but not exactly...

    4. big meteor kinda smaller than big, more like, medium meteor, still there though! xena, the medium meteor!! Yei!

    5. ok maybe it's not that of a medium, more like a small meteor, little warrior meteor thingy.

    6. hey what did you know! that little meteor thingy noone really friggin cares about, was a smudge on the Hubble lens system! huh, sh*t happens, but it's not like we confused it to be the 10-th planet in the Solar system, I mean, cut us some slack, come on :)

    7. hey watch us drink cola in zero gravity. wobble, wobble, wobble, wobble!! lol!

  6. no need! by Quadraginta · · Score: 4, Funny
    Here's a copy of the image itself:
    .

    Don't forget it's a reversed (negative) image, so Xena itself is dark and the background of space is white.

    I think if you look very closely you can see a few faint stars in the background...
    1. Re:no need! by nytes · · Score: 3, Funny

      The red ones are just moving away from you very quickly.

      You need to move your head towards you monitor very fast. That will counteract the red-shift.

      --
      -- I have monkeys in my pants.
    2. Re:no need! by ArsonSmith · · Score: 3, Funny

      I tried it now I'm dizzy and the red-shift is sort of dripping down the front of my monitor.

      --
      Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
  7. Re:Kill Xena... by slashdotmsiriv · · Score: 3, Funny

    " "...kill Xena"

    I thought network television did that..."

    You are wrong, she came back as a Cylon ...

  8. Wrong end? by ozmanjusri · · Score: 3, Funny
    The Tenth Planet Shrinks Under Hubble's Gaze

    I bet they're looking at it through the wrong end of the telescope. If they turn Hubble around, that thing'll turn out to be HUGE!

    --
    "I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
  9. Give it to the Investigators at CSI by aplusjimages · · Score: 3, Funny

    According to the TV show CSI, they can take that pixel increase the image size and then enhance it enough to make out all the different geographical terrian on the planet/object in space. I tried it in Photoshop and it just doesn't work.

    --
    Can I bum a sig?