Bigger than Pluto...the 10th planet?

Well, they said it would happen, and here it is. This object (2003UB313) is about three times farther out from the Sun than Pluto, but that's not the big news. Her'e the kicker: This thing is at least as big as, and most likely bigger than, Pluto. Read about it at the Planetary Society (http://www.planetary.org/news/2005/10th_planet_0729.html)'s news story. Please discuss.

-Snoopy

Well, to be honest, everything is bigger than Pluto. Pluto shouldn't even be classed as a planet in my opinion. It's barely bigger than our Moon.

That's what my dad and I think. The Pluto/Charon system (in my opinion) is just a double KBO but is considered a planet for historical reasons. However, The Plain Dealer is touting 2003 UB313 as the 10th planet, even though the IAU has yet to consider it as such. It also raises the following question: What is a planet?

-Snoopy

Why are moons moons? Jupiter has 23 moons, doesn't it, or something around that number? As I understand it, some of those moons are huge, and for all we know, some may contain life. What makes a moon a moon?
However many roads it walks down.

A satellite, which moons are, orbit another planetary body. That's the most basic definition of a satellite.

True, but we, as Earth, orbit a body. The sun. True, the sun is not a planet, it's a star, but we still orbit it, and we're planets. Though yeah, now I see what a moon is.

No stars are suns, not the other way around.

so is this new planet official? are they gonna start printing updated science books? there really hasnt been any major hype about this, its been relatively quiet.

They aren't giving it any major hype until the governing body who officially classifies it, The International Astronomical Union (IAU), talks to the person responsible for discovering it what it should be called and so on. To my knowledge, this one was prematurely announced publicly by the guy who led the team that found it, Michael Brown, because there were fears someone else was going to take credit for it due to a leak.

Woohoo. NASA must be so happy to have president Bush in the White House. I'd cut their budget immediately if they spent so much money on equipment and weren't able to, until this point, find all the planets in this solar system.

Hmm.. I hope someone looses his job over this :p.

Mr U

The premature name was Sedna, not this one (2003 UB313 until it is formally named). 2003 UB313 isn't a planet in my book (technically, it's a Scattered Disk Object, right?). If it's bigger than Pluto, and Pluto is in that controversy about planet/KBO status, then neither are planets. Remember that object 50000 Quaoar? It has more claim to be a planet than Pluto (or for that matter, 2003 UB313) does/do. 50000 Quaoar orbits in the Ecliptic, while 2003 UB313 and Pluto have wildly tilted orbits. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) released a statement about what a planet was. Find it here (http://exoplanets.org/defn.html). I disagree with the Pluto mass limit.
About Jupiter and its moons: Actually, Jupiter has somewhere around 80 moons.

-Snoopy

Woohoo. NASA must be so happy to have president Bush in the White House. I'd cut their budget immediately if they spent so much money on equipment and weren't able to, until this point, find all the planets in this solar system.

Hmm.. I hope someone looses his job over this :p.

Mr U


I agree. I mean what is the point of the space program anyway? Have they done anything worthwhile in recent years? Sure we're on Mars and got a bunch of dust from there, but nothing that has changed the world. We spend billions of dollars on space shuttle flights that accomplish what exactly? Take discovery, sure they were the 1st to go up after columbia...but it seems like thats all they did, go up.

We spend billions of dollars on space shuttle flights that accomplish what exactly?

Scientific advancement. We do have payloads going up all the time you know.

However, I agree that the government funding is shocking.

That, and to satisfy our natural curiosity about what's out there. You could say the same thing about why poeple go to the bottom of the ocean, or go to Antartica. It just because we can.

I greatly advocate exploration and observation of deep-sea environments and outer space.
I heard a rumor that the object (2003 UB313) was called "Planet Lila." I hope it's wrong...I couldn't stand an object called "Lila." I mean, "Percephone" would be something preferred. Hey, here's an idea...Post what you think the object should be named!
Also: HomoUniversalis, those objects are so far away that we've only recently started to develop more resources powerful enough to view these things. Who's going to lose their job?
Anywho, has anyone heard about the KBO they're calling "Santa" and its moon, the "Little Helper?"

-Snoopy