Posted on 07/12/2016 8:03:24 AM PDT by BenLurkin
Pluto isn't quite as lonely as scientists had thought.
Astronomers have discovered another dwarf planet in the Kuiper Belt, the ring of icy objects beyond Neptune. But this newfound world, dubbed 2015 RR245, is much more distant than Pluto, orbiting the sun once every 700 Earth years, scientists said. (Pluto completes one lap around the sun every 248 Earth years.)
"The icy worlds beyond Neptune trace how the giant planets formed and then moved out from the sun," discovery team member Michele Bannister, of the University of Victoria in British Columbia, said in a statement. "They let us piece together the history of our solar system."
...
The exact size of 2015 RR245 is not yet known, but the researchers think it's about 435 miles (700 kilometers) wide. Pluto is the largest resident of the Kuiper Belt, with a diameter of 1,474 miles (2,371 km).
The research team first spotted 2015 RR245 in February of this year, while poring over images that the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope in Hawaii took in September 2015 as part of the ongoing Outer Solar System Origins Survey (OSSOS).
"There it was on the screen — this dot of light moving so slowly that it had to be at least twice as far as Neptune from the sun," Bannister said.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
There are advantages to living in the Left Coast Time Zo-an.
Good morning, epoples!
88 degrees out, no breeze, but the humidity is up into the double digits...16%. Ungh.
Kittens in your in-tray.
Good morning. The next-to-last load of Tom’s things (plus general accumulation) is in the washer. Vlad will be home soon with his dirty clothes, but he was gone only four days, so it won’t be as much.
The original proposal called for it to be named.
The Carlos Castaneda Coyote Master Shaman Peyote and Toad Suck Research and Self-Worship and Meditation Park
Lack of funding caused the abbreviated, though pithy and concise current name. Sez it all.
My favorite Castenada vision tale is the one with the three legged washing machine walking thru the desert with a toad and Gila Monster spinning words wisdom, let it be, let it be.
Well, with binary, you're either in, or you're out.
We had a Carlos Castaneda at our church for a while, but he got a job with the Archdiocese of Baltimore and left. He was Peruvian.
So was the author...
Hmmm. Rather suspicious coincidence ...
You have peyote cactus plants growing in your back yard, don't you?
LOL!
I’ve had my shower, but I don’t feel much better than I did before it. Now I’m just sort of wet (hair) instead of all wet.
This is the day that mopping and vacuuming have chosen to take their revenge. I hate that. But it’s part of CFIDS, so I will deal. My brain feels like it’s bogged down in gray lint.
Something tells me I won’t be at church today. I will try to spend the majority of the day doing quiet things and contemplating my future.
I had a shower, too. The last load of previous wash is on. Vlad will be home shortly with more.
I don’t know what I’d do with more than two loads of wash every week. I’m so hoping St George has washers or washer hook-ups in the apartments... (If I’m going to dream, I may as well dream big!)
So is this the end of the summer camps for the Tax-Chicklets?
Oh my! The ivy seems to have taken it over. Still, it’s very pretty!
Yikes, I’ll bet that’s damp inside.
Pretty, but damp.
It would take a lot of fire places to dry that out, for sure!
Plus a few dozen dehumidifiers
That vine also damages the brick pointing and roof tiles.
I thought you were supposed to lick the toad.
Or was that a frog?
I’ll have to ask the resident expert on trivial matters of toad and frog.
Yes, it does damage them for sure!
When we have that vigil here it’s in front of the sink...
And it usually means that a critter of some rodentlike form has checked into my electronic rodent eternal rest motel...
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