Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

"Xena" To Be Named Eris

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the all-hail-discorida dept.

rdwald writes, "After over a year of hanging in maybe-planet limbo, newly-classified 2003 UB313, nicknamed Xena, now has a permanent name: Eris, goddess of strife. Its moon will be named Dysnomia, after the goddess of lawlessness — in Greek mythology, Eris's daughter — certainly not a reference there... I don't think I'm alone when I say, 'Hail Eris! All hail Discordia!'" In the same IAU announcement (PDF), Pluto was given its official minor planet number: 134340.

2 of 167 comments (clear)

  1. I think UB313 was way cooler as a planetoid name by tomhudson · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Sounds more like a "film noir" or an old german submarine. Eris? It'll immediately be confused with Eros. UB313! UB313! UB313!

  2. Re:First planet named after an IRC network! by Random832 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    the EF in EFnet stands for "Eris free" - in the sense of "without Eris". There was a misconfigured server called eris.berkeley.edu and a bunch of server admins got together to make a new network so they could ban it.

    --
    We've secretly replaced Slashdot with new Folgers Crystals - let's see if it notices.