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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."

3 of 318 comments (clear)

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

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

  2. Re:atomic? by helioquake · · Score: 5, Informative

    A pixel is small, but nowhere near subatomic. It's measured only in microns.

    When photons are distributed over the CCD surfrace, it has some measureable shape (e.g., Gaussian) which can be fitted as such to characterize the shape. The quoted size of 1.5 pixel is, I think, the FWHM of the fitted Gaussian function that characterize its source.

  3. A planet by any other name.... by svunt · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Ah, I still remember fondly the first time I saw a slashdot thread climb to a few hundred posts of argument about 'what makes a planet a planet?'. If ever a term was crying out for a rigid, ostensive definition from astronomers, it's 'planet'. From the ancient greek word for "wanderer", if we don't tighten it up some, the argument will come trotting out every time someone finds a rock doing laps about the sun. Stays within 10 degrees of the ecliptic, say 3,000km across...that works for me.