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Kentuckian
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Topic: 10th planet found in our solar system Posted: 29-Jul-2005 at 20:59 |
they say it's bigger than Pluto, and that it's 97 times farther away from the sun than Earth is.
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Tobodai
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Posted: 29-Jul-2005 at 21:28 |
Well it depends. Although Pluto is classified as a Planet, if it was discovered today it wouldnt have been called a planet as it behaves like some out of sych object. Much the same rules could be applied to this thing.
Tho personally I think many astronomers are just too lazy to update thier maps with more planets.
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Posted: 30-Jul-2005 at 06:45 |
Marduk, the tenth planet (12th in Sumerian-Egyptian culture, counting moon and sun as planets).
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Cywr
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Posted: 30-Jul-2005 at 09:47 |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4730061.stm
There must be about 5 10th planets by now. The more the merrier.
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Maju
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Posted: 30-Jul-2005 at 20:54 |
Not just 2003UB313 could be as large as Mercury but, yesterday another planet 2003EL61, which could also be larger than Pluto was announced. So we have two new planets, still unnamed, in two days...
Nothing bigger than Pluto had been discovered in 75 years and now we have two candidates in a 48 hrs. - it's amazing!
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rider
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Posted: 31-Jul-2005 at 05:09 |
It is amazing and funny.. probably they'll find more soon.
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Maju
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Posted: 31-Jul-2005 at 07:38 |
One important thing is that, while Pluto and its twin 2003EL61 are Kuiper Belt objects (of the plutino class),
2003UB313 is clearly well beyond the limits of that outer "asteroideal"
belt, at 93 AUs of the Sun (KB reaches between 30 and 50 AUs). I still
don't know about the details of its orbit but actually, if we lean to
consider Pluto a non-planet (planetoid), as some have proposed,
2003UB313 would be the first planet found since Neptune in 1846,
specially if it reaches the size of Mercury and has a "normal"
quasi-circular orbit.
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rider
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Posted: 01-Aug-2005 at 03:10 |
The map shows you how far it actually is from Pluto... it is amazing that something from that distance can catch the gravity from Sun. And it was not larger than 3000 km. It is larger than Mercury, but almsot in the size of Mars. And another space news: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4727847.stm
Ice Lake on Mars... it is wonderful, there can actually be slife or smthg like it. Or tracks of lifeforms.
Edited by rider
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Menippos
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Posted: 01-Aug-2005 at 04:46 |
Data: Life-forms, where are you little life-forms!
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CARRY NOTHING
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rider
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Posted: 01-Aug-2005 at 15:28 |
You are brave...
,aybe theyll name it ATHENS
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Maju
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Posted: 01-Aug-2005 at 15:56 |
Originally posted by rider
The map shows you how far it actually is from Pluto... it is amazing
that something from that distance can catch the gravity from Sun. And
it was not larger than 3000 km. It is larger than Mercury, but almsot
in the size of Mars. And another space news: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4727847.stm
Ice Lake on Mars... it is wonderful, there can actually be slife or smthg like it. Or tracks of lifeforms. |
The gravity of the Sun reaches much more farther... that's only the
inner limit of what is supposed to be the inmense Oort Cloud all of it
trapped by Sun's gravity.
What doesn't reach far is the Sun's heat, so Mars may have water but it
seems that it's been almost all the time frozen, and 2003UB313 has
methane ice what seems to imply that it hasn't been heated at all since
the formation of the Solar System. This should be the best and first
solid proof against the Nemesis hypothesis.
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Menippos
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Posted: 01-Aug-2005 at 17:33 |
Originally posted by rider
You are brave...
,aybe theyll name it ATHENS |
Actually, I would rather they called it Terje...
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CARRY NOTHING
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Quetzalcoatl
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Posted: 01-Aug-2005 at 21:03 |
Every freaking year now they discover a 10th planet.
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Quetzalcoatl
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Posted: 02-Aug-2005 at 01:38 |
It is very controversial that Pluto is a planet, some experts think it is just a body covered with solid methane (the reason the methane didn't escape was because pluto is so cold that the methane solidified, other pluto would be just a rock revolving around the sun). I'm the kind who think there is actually 8 planets not 9, and certainly not 10.
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rider
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Posted: 02-Aug-2005 at 03:11 |
Now there are 9. Fortunatly it was called after Pallas Athena Xenia... - Xena.
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Maju
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Posted: 02-Aug-2005 at 08:07 |
Originally posted by Quetzalcoatl
Every freaking year now they discover a 10th planet. |
If you think that Mercury (with 2440 km of diameter, smaller than
Earth's Moon) is a planet, then 2003UB313 is a planet for sure. It's
not just larger than Pluto (for sure) but it could be as large as the
Moon (some say that even Mars but this is surely an exageration). In
any case it's the largest object found in the Solar System since
Neptune - that is since 1846, almost 2 centuries ago.
To say that UB313 is not a planet we may need not just to demote Pluto
(which is surely justified, specially beacause it belongs to the Kuiper
Belt) but also Mercury (which is not). Any object orbiting the Sun of
about the size of Mercury is a planet.
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Maju
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Posted: 02-Aug-2005 at 08:18 |
Originally posted by rider
Now there are 9. Fortunatly it was called after Pallas Athena Xenia... - Xena. |
Where did you get that from? I haven't read it anwhere; they are
suppossed to be waiting to the veredict of the IAU (see http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/planetlila/). Still, they say that (as Persephone has already been used and there are not many Greco-Roman divinities free to be used):
Luckily, the world is full of mythological and spiritual traditions.
In the past we have named Kuiper belt objects after native American,
Inuit, and [minor] Roman gods. Our new proposed name expands to
different traditions, still. We hope it is accepted by the IAU and hope
afterwards that it is embraced by all.
Which are your bets? A Nordic divinity such as Hela (infernal
godess, typical for Plutinos)? An Egyptian diviny such as Anubis? A
Chinese one (China has a lot of astronomical tradition but no object
has been named yet after any Chinese god)? A Japanese one? An African
deity? Inca? Mayan? Polinesian? (Asian) Indian?
Edited by Maju
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Tobodai
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Posted: 02-Aug-2005 at 12:02 |
Even if we classify this as a planet, there might still only be nine:
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By Alexis Akwagyiram BBC News |
The discovery of a new planet in our Solar System could have an unintended consequence - the elimination of Pluto in the list of planets everyone has in their heads. Is it time to wave this distant, dark piece of rock farewell?
To the casual observer, the announcement that scientists have identified a tenth planet orbiting the Sun is primarily of importance to few people other than science teachers and schoolchildren.
But, on closer examination, the revelation may have more far-reaching consequences for the way in which we think about space.
At around 3,000km across, 2003 UB313 - as it has been named - is the largest object found in our Solar System since the discovery of Neptune in 1846.
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PLANETS MNEMONICS
My Very Excellent Mother Just Sent Us Nine Pizzas
My Very Earnest Mother Just Served Us Nine Pickles
Matilda Visits Every Monday, Just Stays Until Noon, Period | And it is thought to be larger than Pluto, whose status as the furthest planet from the Sun has been enshrined in accepted thought since it was identified in 1930.
But this could all change.
Technological advances have enabled astronomers to find more minor planets, stars, asteroids and comets.
And in the late 1960s scientists found that Pluto's size had been over-estimated.
It was first thought to be around as large as Earth, whereas accepted thought now suggests that the planet's mass is only around a fifth of the moon's.
"Today, the world knows that Pluto is not unique. There are other Plutos, just farther out in the Solar System where they are a little harder to find," says David Rabinowitz of Yale University, who was among the astronomers who discovered 2003 UB313 two years ago.
His point is echoed by Professor Mark Bailey, director of Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland.
"Increasingly, objects are far away and there are objects which are of comparable size to Pluto, so if you think of Pluto as a planet then you should refer to those objects as planets," he says.
He estimates that there could be tens of thousands of objects beyond Neptune in the Solar System region known as the Kuiper belt, many of which may be larger than Pluto.
The discovery of 2003 UB313 comes soon after it was announced that 2003 EL61 had been found.
Planet 2003 UB313 is among several objects discovered in recent years |
And a number of distant objects around the same size of Pluto have been found in recent years, including Quaoar (found in 2002) and Sedna (detected in 2004).
It is widely accepted that the struggle to provide an adequate definition of a planet is the crux of the problem.
"Originally a planet was a wandering star. Then it was something that moved across the sky. Then it was something that revolved around the Sun. The criterion about when it should be called a planet is something that is changing over time," says Prof Bailey.
"I'm sure we will continue to discover more and more objects of comparable size which will continue to challenge established thought about planets."
'Size does matter'
Dr Brian Marsden, director of the International Astronomy Union's minor planet centre, believes the simplest way to resolve the confusion is to reject Pluto's claim to being a planet on the grounds that "size does matter".
Instead he says people should accept that "we have eight planets and only an object bigger than Mars could be considered to be a planet in the future".
He argues that the disruption that would be caused to accepted thought would, ultimately, provide a more accurate understanding of space.
"School text books concentrate too much on the idea that Pluto is the ninth planet. Teaching should stress that there are hundreds of thousands of much smaller objects. Knowing a mnemonic and naming the planets is not science."
But not everyone believes science has the right, or influence to turn accepted thought on its head.
"Our culture has fully embraced the idea that Pluto is a planet and scientists have for the most part not yet realised that the term planet no longer belongs to them," says Michael Brown, one of the astronomers who discovered 2003 UB313.
Technological advances have enabled astronomers to extend their gaze |
His conclusion is simple: "From now on, everyone should ignore the distracting debates of the scientists. Planets in our solar system should be defined not by some attempt at forcing a scientific definition on a thousands-of-years-old cultural term, but by simply embracing culture. Pluto is a planet because culture says it is.
"It is understandably hard for scientists to let go of a word that they think they use scientifically, but they need to."
He considers 2003 UB313 to be a planet in a "cultural" and "historical" sense, adding: "I will not argue that it is a scientific planet because there is no good scientific definition which fits our solar system and our culture and I have decided to let culture win this one.
"We scientists can continue our debates, but I hope we are generally ignored."
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"the people are nothing but a great beast...
I have learned to hold popular opinion of no value."
-Alexander Hamilton
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Maju
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Posted: 02-Aug-2005 at 12:57 |
If nothing smaller than Mars is a planet (funny definition) then
Mercury isn't a planet either as it's 3 times smaller than the Red
Planet.
We can discuss on Pluto being a planet or not, after all it has less
than 80 years of history as a culturally accepted "planet" and its
belonging to the Kuiper Belt makes it quite different from any other
"planet". But Mercury has been a planet since the first Cro-Magnon
looked to the skies... if Pluto is not the limit for a planet then at
least we have to accept that Mercury is. Else we will have to demote
the inner planet from that category. I just can't accept as
scientifical that "anything smaller than Mars isn't a planet"... that
idea is as cultural as saying anything as big as Pluto is a planet.
A much more scientifical definition would be everything that revolves
around the Sun and has round shape is a planet... that would give us
about 17 planets: the traditional 9, plus Ceres, Quaoar, Ixion, Orcus,
Sedna and the three newly discovered (yes, three! - there's another
object about the size of Pluto that has been announced but went
unnoticed among the other discoveries).
Diagram showing the orbits of the three new discoveries. Guess the black circle is the orbit of Neptune.
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rider
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Posted: 02-Aug-2005 at 13:52 |
Originally posted by Maju
Originally posted by rider
Now there are 9. Fortunatly it was called after Pallas Athena Xenia... - Xena. |
Where did you get that from? I haven't read it anwhere; they are suppossed to be waiting to the veredict of the IAU (see http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/planetlila/). Still, they say that (as Persephone has already been used and there are not many Greco-Roman divinities free to be used):
Luckily, the world is full of mythological and spiritual traditions. In the past we have named Kuiper belt objects after native American, Inuit, and [minor] Roman gods. Our new proposed name expands to different traditions, still. We hope it is accepted by the IAU and hope afterwards that it is embraced by all.
Which are your bets? A Nordic divinity such as Hela (infernal godess, typical for Plutinos)? An Egyptian diviny such as Anubis? A Chinese one (China has a lot of astronomical tradition but no object has been named yet after any Chinese god)? A Japanese one? An African deity? Inca? Mayan? Polinesian? (Asian) Indian?
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Some of my newspapers said it. http://www.epl.ee/artikkel_297522.html
'Senised planeedid kannavad peale Maa kik Rooma jumalate nimesid: Merkuur, Veenus, Marss, Jupiter, Saturn, Uraan, Neptuun, Pluuto. Xena on aga Hollywoodi mugandus Pallas Athena liignimest Xenia. '
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