Posted on 02/01/2006 2:50:01 PM PST by Freedumb
LONDON (Reuters) - A distant object discovered in space last year which could be the 10th planet in our solar system is around a third bigger than Pluto, German astrophysicists said on Wednesday.
They determined the diameter of the potential new planet, known as 2003 UB313, by measuring its thermal emission.
"We actually measured the size of UB313 which was not known prior to these observations," Professor Frank Bertoldi, of the University of Bonn and the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Germany who headed the research team, said in an interview with Reuters.
According to their calculations it has a diameter of 3,000 km (1,864 miles), about 700 km (435 miles) bigger than Pluto, which would make it the largest solar system object found since the discovery of Neptune in 1846.
"Since UB313 is decidedly larger than Pluto, it is now increasingly hard to justify calling Pluto a planet if UB313 is not also given this status," Bertoldi added.
The International Astronomical Union will decide if UB313, found by Professor Mike Brown and his colleagues at the California Institute of Technology, is a planet. No date has been set for a decision.
Although the size of UB313 is known, what it is made of is not, a factor that is important in determining planet status.
No new planet has been designated since the discovery of Pluto in 1930.
Brown and his team discovered UB313 by looking for visible wavelengths in the skies. They determined the orbital shape and distance of the potential planet, which has been nicknamed Xena after the warrior princess of television fame, by its speed.
Last October, Brown and his team announced UB313 had a moon called Gabrielle.
The possible planet, the most distant object seen in the solar system, is an icy body in the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune. The belt contains objects left over from the formation of our planetary system some 4.5 billion years ago.
Solar system objects are visible through the light they reflect from the sun. Bertoldi and his team used a 30-meter (100-ft) telescope in southern Spain and a very sensitive heat sensor to measure the heat radiation to determine the size.
UB313's orbit is elongated. It zooms as close as 5.6 billion km (3.5 billion miles) from the sun and moves out to as far as 14.5 billion km (9 billion miles) away.
Earth orbits consistently at 150 million km (93 million miles) from the sun. It takes the potential planet 560 Earth years to complete one trip around the Sun, compared to Pluto's 250 years.
So is it bigger than UB40?
Bigger than Ubie Blake?
Yet if you were to visually inspect the Earths orbit from a long distance away, you'd be hard pressed to say it was not circular.
Same thing with the oblateness of the Earth. The Earth is actually more spherical than most pool balls you will ever see.
Bigger than Ted Kennedy??
Yep, they are knuckleheads. But what do you expect when most people fear or loathe science when they are taught it in school? The "what makes a planet" debate is pretty interesting though. Personally, if a body has a sustainable atmosphere (however tenuous) that is independent of orbital position (ruling out comets), and does not revolve around another body (ruling out moons like Titan), then it probably deserves planethood.
what about RU486
The last planet larger than Pluto discovered was also discovered in Germany, by Galle in 1846, using calculations sent him by a Frenchman, LeVerrier.
space ping
By about 270.
Well then I'm a dope too. If somebody asks me how far Earth is from the sun, I say 93 million miles; I don't additionally give a mini-lecture about focal points.
No, but it's bigger than Uranus.
But not bigger than Ur-anus!
HAHAHAHA
Me so funnny.
Bigger, but not a gaseous, or Scotch-filled.
No wonder I can't shoot straight. All thos tiny little mountains keep the ball falling off its track.
Does this planet contradict Bode's law?
Bode's Law isn't a law, it's a mnemonic (at best). (':
Not to nitpick, but this has already appeared on FreeRepublic, and it's in the active list. :'(
New Planet Is Bigger Than Pluto
AP on Yahoo | 2/1/06 | Alicia Chang - ap
Posted on 02/01/2006 11:04:55 AM PST by NormsRevenge
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1569542/posts
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