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New planet discovered

It needs a better name than 2003 UB313. I'm never going to remember that!
 
c4ts said:
It needs a better name than 2003 UB313. I'm never going to remember that!
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As I was reminded elsewhere: The name is "Dave".

Rasmus.
 
That's so cool.

I wonder how the newspapers will fill the space that used to be occupied by horoscopes, now that the astrologers will have to admit they got it wrong and will leave business.
 
Interesting article in a recent New Scientist looked at the idea of there being multiple Mars-sized planets far beyond Pluto's orbit, knocked out there during the early formation of the Solar System. It adds weight to the 'dust-bunny' theory of planet formation, where slow aggregation of dust and gas reaches a point where gravity is sufficient to assist in accumulating even more mass. Such a theory suggests that numerous planets would form, of which some would have been knocked into a halo in the far reaches of the solar system.

Athon
 
Is that stupid Russian woman going to sue these astronomers too for buggering up her horoscope?

I hear they were originally going to call the planet 531 8008, but then someone turned the paper upside down...
 
Well, we have the Van Allen belts, the Oort cloud, the Kuiper belt, the comet Halley... and now a discovery from a team headed by someone named Brown.

Hmmm.

"The Planet Brown."

Sounds pretty good to me.
 
The thing that I think is most interesting about this new planet is that it sits in an orbit that is at an angle to those of the main 9. When I was in college, we always used to talk about what was "above" and "below" our solar system. Here is a planet that spends most of its time above or below the plane of the conventional solar system.
 
pgwenthold said:
The thing that I think is most interesting about this new planet is that it sits in an orbit that is at an angle to those of the main 9. When I was in college, we always used to talk about what was "above" and "below" our solar system. Here is a planet that spends most of its time above or below the plane of the conventional solar system.
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Well, Pluto is a bit off, too.

Basically, the planets (except Pluto) go around the sun with orbits being pretty close to being in the same plane (like marbles on a flat table, as some say). That's why most planets appear to us as pretty close to the ecliptic. But Pluto is not on this plane. And neither is this newly discovered body.
 
Actually, joking aside this is a pretty big discovery - a new planet!

It's the sort of thing you ought to be able to remember where you were when it was announced.

But, guaranteed, it won't get a quarter of the column inches of Kinga re-entering the Big Brother House.
 
Brown said:
Well, Pluto is a bit off, too.

Basically, the planets (except Pluto) go around the sun with orbits being pretty close to being in the same plane (like marbles on a flat table, as some say). That's why most planets appear to us as pretty close to the ecliptic. But Pluto is not on this plane. And neither is this newly discovered body.
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Makes me wonder if it might be a "captured" planet, could be interesting to compare to other solar planets. I believe there was some speculation in this regard concerning Pluto, as well, but I don't keep up with Astronomy enough to know the current ideas.
 
Ashles said:
Actually, joking aside this is a pretty big discovery - a new planet!

It's the sort of thing you ought to be able to remember where you were when it was announced.

But, guaranteed, it won't get a quarter of the column inches of Kinga re-entering the Big Brother House.
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Interesting, too, considering how, for example, Clyde Tombaugh is so celebrated even though he was really only a technician who "discovered" Pluto because the people who knew it existed and knew about where it was supposed to be and were taking pictures of the sky in that area weren't the same ones who were comparing the photographic plates. Will these folks gain the same celebrity status?

{disclaimer: I have nothing against Tombaugh, and am very glad he did the work he did. However, it is important to recognize that he was part of a team of very capable people who all made major contributions to the discovery of Pluto}
 
Huntsman said:
Makes me wonder if it might be a "captured" planet, could be interesting to compare to other solar planets. I believe there was some speculation in this regard concerning Pluto, as well, but I don't keep up with Astronomy enough to know the current ideas.
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Now that would be even more interesting - an extra-solar planet in orbit around our very own sun.

We really need to find a way to get around our solar system a bit more rapidly.
 
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