2003 Ub 313: The Incredible Shrinking Planet?, No bigger than Pluto? |
2003 Ub 313: The Incredible Shrinking Planet?, No bigger than Pluto? |
Guest_BruceMoomaw_* |
Jan 31 2006, 09:20 PM
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Apr 11 2006, 06:08 PM
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2454 Joined: 8-July 05 From: NGC 5907 Member No.: 430 |
FOR RELEASE: 1:00 pm (EDT) April 11, 2006
Erica Hupp/Dwayne Brown Headquarters, Washington (Phone: 202/358-1237/1726) Ray Villard Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md. (Phone: 410/338-4514; E-mail: villard@stsci.edu) PRESS RELEASE NO.: STScI-PR06-16 HUBBLE FINDS THAT THE 'TENTH PLANET' IS SLIGHTLY LARGER THAN PLUTO NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has resolved the "tenth planet," nicknamed "Xena," for the first time and has found that it is only just a little larger than Pluto. Though previous ground-based observations suggested that Xena was about 30 percent greater in diameter than Pluto, Hubble observations taken on Dec. 9 and 10, 2005, yield a diameter of 1,490 miles (with an uncertainty of 60 miles) for Xena. Pluto's diameter, as measured by Hubble, is 1,422 miles. Xena is officially catalogued as 2003 UB313. It is the large object at the bottom of this artist's concept. A portion of its surface is lit by the Sun, located in the upper left corner of the image. Xena's companion, Gabrielle, is located just above and to the left of Xena. For electronic images and additional information about the research on the Web, visit: http://hubblesite.org/news/2006/16 http://www.nasa.gov/hubble For more information, contact Robert Tindol, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, (phone) 626-395-3631, (e-mail) tindol@caltech.edu, or Mike Brown, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, (phone) 626-395-8423, (e-mail) mbrown@gps.caltech.edu . The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore conducts Hubble science operations. The Institute is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., Washington. -------------------- "After having some business dealings with men, I am occasionally chagrined,
and feel as if I had done some wrong, and it is hard to forget the ugly circumstance. I see that such intercourse long continued would make one thoroughly prosaic, hard, and coarse. But the longest intercourse with Nature, though in her rudest moods, does not thus harden and make coarse. A hard, sensible man whom we liken to a rock is indeed much harder than a rock. From hard, coarse, insensible men with whom I have no sympathy, I go to commune with the rocks, whose hearts are comparatively soft." - Henry David Thoreau, November 15, 1853 |
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