The 10th Planet

[Haddas]

Yes. The 10th planet of our solar system has been found. This might be old news for some, but it's new to me. The news is only 2 days old now.

But as of now we must teach children in school the new planet names. Which are now Mercury, Venus, Tellus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and the cleverly and creatively named 2003UB313.

The thing that amazes me most is that it's actually 1½ times larger than Pluto. It's 14,5 billion kilometers away, made of rock and ice and completes a rotation in 560 years

What are your feelings on this? Excited? Indifferent? Excited?

EDIT: Actually it was already FOUND back in January
EDIT2: Read more at http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/science/20050730-9999-1n30planet.html

[Raggit]

How do you know this? 

[Vince Twelve]

A hacker made them go public with the discovery.  Which, to me is just dumb.  If a scientist hasn't come forward with information it's probably because they're working to verify it and don't want to announce incorrect findings...

I'm not sure the validity of this news portal, but:

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=25031

[Haddas]

Brand new info! That's shocking to hear. Who knows what else they've found and not told us!

[Raggit]

Isn't there a link to any articles or anything?

[Vince Twelve]

I think more scientists should bide their time and double check research before announcing something.  It's not like they were sitting on the cure for cancer, here.

[Darth Mandarb]

I was watching CNN two days ago and they covered this story.

The story said:

They discovered it back in 2003 ... but needed to verify it's movement to classify it as a "planet".  They have now tracked its movement, confirmed that is is a tenth planet, and that it has yet to be named.

I'm thrilled by this announcement.

I find it fascinating that we somehow missed this planet in more than 4,000 years of star-gazing.

It gives me hope that there are MANY other things we don't yet know and can discover in our little insignificant corner of the universe.

Here is the article on CNN.com - great stuff!

[Disco]

I find it fascinating that we somehow missed this planet in more than 4,000 years of star-gazing.

Learning of a new planet is fascinating, but it isn't so hard to believe it went unnoticed until now. Pluto's existence was confirmed only 75 years ago in 1930.

[Phemar]

Actually I heard yesterday on the radio that it had been renamed Xena: Warrior Princess.

Ok, well maybe not the warrior princess part ...

[Nacho]

I laughed when I heard that, because there was a chapter in "Alf" (The series about the hairy alien) where he says there is a 10th planet and nobody believes him. He even helps the kid to make his homeworks and he fails the science subject, of course, because putting a 10th planet was supposed to be "uncorrect". 

[SpacePirateCaine]

That is awesome news. I am, as my name suggests, a big nerd when it comes to space-related stuff - I spend hours at a time reading articles on Space.com. I even check the Sun cam now and then. A nice sized ball of ice 9 billion miles from the sun - and on one hell of an orbit, too.

My biggest hope about this one is that they give it a proper Roman God name, I'd suggest Vulcan - but there'd be no end to the Star Trek references. Maybe something like Janus - god of Doors. You know, last planet in our Solar system - entrance to our world, so on. Seems to me it makes the most sense to go with Roman mythology, since with the exception of Terra, the rest all have been named as such. And 2003UB313 is a mouthful.

Very cool stuff.

[Nacho]

I wouldn't bet for Vulcano, as it is more appropiated for very hot planets. Vulcano was the name given to a planet that was supposed to be between the Sun and Mercury (they thought it was there by some gravitional stuff they detected in mercury, but it was explained by Einstein's theory of relativity). Janus is good for me!

[Nine Toes]

Actually, I remember reading in books long ago when I was a child (probably in 3rd grade or so), that scientists beleived (or had seen) a planet beyond Pluto. Ã, They always referred to it as "Planet X", because they could never confirm that it was an actual planet... something like that. Ã, Too long ago for me to remember. Ã, However, I personally liked "Planet X" rather than "2003UB313"... just sounds cooler. Ã,  Ã, I remember this because, one day in class, we were learning about the solar system, and when the teacher said there were nine planets, I brought up the topic of this planet. Ã, He and the other students all looked at me like I was nuts. Ã, They all said there was no such thing, that this "Planet X" was nothing more than a fairy tale.

So the news is actually A LOT older than many of you think.

Another thing I'd like to bring up, is that when I was in high school, my science teacher (who actually has a subscription to that insanely expensive magazine, "Science") had read that Astronomers and such no longer considered Pluto to be a part of our solar system, because it was just too far out in space... I don't know if there was any truth in that at all, but I thought it was stupid. Ã, You can't just say that a planet isn't a part of the solar system because it's too far out. Ã, It revolves around our star, so therefore, it is part of the solar system.

So, if they considered Pluto to not be a part of our solar system, then would they say the same thing of this "2003UB313"?

Feel free to correct my knowledge (actually, please do so), I haven't been keeping up on my science trivia for a few years now.

[Vince Twelve]

I remember reading the same thing about Planet X in a book when I was a kid, so this was a learning experience for me as well.  Turns out there was no planet X, just some faulty science:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet_X

And the difficulty with calling Pluto a planet has nothing to do with it's distance from the sun.  It has to do with the question of how to define a planet.  Do we have a size or mass cut-off?  A certain orbital angle?  Shape?  Chemical composition?  There are a lot of different arguments and opinions amongst astronomers:

http://www.astrosociety.org/education/publications/tnl/59/planetdefine.html

Some people even think that the Earth and the moon should be considered a double planet, not a planet and a satellite.  Something to do with the mass ratio or something...

[Nacho]

As far as I know, "Planet X" was another imaginery planet, like Vulcano. It was supposed to be of the same size and in the same orbit than Earth, but, orbiting in the other side of the sun, so we would never be able to see it. Also, it was supposed to have life (as it was in an orbit able to support life) and a very advanced civilization too, like us.

We must put planet X more in the field of imagination (it was invented at the end of XIXth Century, the Verne and H.G Wells period) than in a group of planets placed there by the gravitatory effects observed by astronoms, like the planets Neptunus, Pluto and Vulcano (but, as said, they made a mistake with Vulcano).

The funny stuff is that the first solar probes were deviated to take a look to our oppsite part of the orbit... just as a precaution... Ã, :

[Becky]

I'm not suprised scientists haven't "officially" released this info till recently, as there's as much debate about whether Pluto is a planet or a large asteroid body as it is to add any further fuel to the fire.  They'll be arguing over wether this 10th planet is a "planet" till the cows come home.

This news interests me, as I've always had an interest in space and the like.

[SSH]

Well, Xena is a Kuiper belt object, and there's loads of them. They have found large ones before, but they are mainly classified as asteroids. Surely the definition of planet is more than just the size of the object in question?

Well, I don't claim to be an expert astronomer, but I wonder if that lady who was suing NASA for hitting the comet are going to sue the guy who found this planet for messing up her horoscope again...

[Phemar]

Xena is about twice the size of Pluto, and Pluto is only about 1500 kilometres long, I think.

Personally I wouldn't classify Pluto or Xena as planets ...

[Mr Flibble]

If they don't name this new 'planet' (its probably more like a huge asteroid or something. I don't think even Pluto is big enough to actually be classed as a planet) it simply must be named Rupert.

[Phemar]

Haha agreed, Flibble!