Big Tno Discovery Options

[SFJCody]

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mpml/message/15111

[mike]

Planet X, or perhaps Rama I.

[slinted]

Interestingly enough, it had already been found by another group and was given the designation K40506A. It has an elongated shape, 3.9 hour rotational period and a satellite. Total mass of it and its satellite weighs in around 30% of Pluto.

http://www.aas.org/publications/baas/v37n3/dps2005/320.htm
http://www.aas.org/publications/baas/v37n3/dps2005/786.htm

[Bob Shaw]

Hmmm... ...a candidate for a post-Pluto encounter, perhaps? Depends where it is, of course...

[TheChemist]

BBC article : Distant object found orbiting Sun

[volcanopele]

While K40506A/2003 EL61 now appears to be smaller than Pluto based on Spitzer data, another newly announced TNO, 2003 UB313 is defintely larger than Pluto, perhaps as large as Mars.

http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/planetlila/index.html
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/mpec/K05/K05O41.html

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

WOW............when will there be an official announcement?

[Jyril]

That's not all!

There are third large KBO discovery announcement today (MPEC 2005-O42).

The object, 2005 FY9, may also be larger than 2003 EL61!

[volcanopele]

WOW............when will there be an official announcement?

a few minutes ago:

NASA-Funded Scientists Discover Tenth Planet
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solars...net-072905.html

[odave]

The article quotes Brown as saying it will be "visible with a telescope", but you'd better have a big one. S&T gives it a magnitude of 18.9 - Pluto is 13.8, and I have trouble seeing it in my 12.5" dob.

Very cool news. I wonder if this will stir the pot of the whole "is Pluto really a planet" debate...

[Decepticon]

Is the object at it's closest approach to the sun?

[Decepticon]

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/050729_new_planet.html

Update 11:27pm

[remcook]

Methane on the surface as well...another frozen-out atmosphere?
Looks like a job for Spitzer, Hubble, etc
very cool

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

According to the NY Times, it's nowhere near perihelion. Its 560-year orbit is extremely eccentric -- it's currently 97 AU from the Sun, but has a perihelion of only 35.5 AU -- and tilted an astonishing 44 degrees to the ecliptic, which makes it more understandable that it wasn't discovered before. As for its size: the
Spitzer Telescope cannot yet detect its thermal IR, meaning that it must be
less than twice Pluto's diameter -- but it would be bigger than Pluto even
if its albedo was 100%. It apparently has methane frost like Pluto; if its
albedo equals Pluto's 0.60, it must be about 3000 km in diameter as compared
to Pluto's 2270 km.

Meanwhile, we also have a THIRD big KBO announced today: 2005 FY9, which has
been detected by the Spitzer Telescope and is modestly smaller than Pluto --
along with 2003 EL61, this morning's false alarm, which turns out to be
smaller still. (The latter has a moon, which has allowed its mass to be
calculated at 30% of Pluto's.) Neither of these is small potatoes either,
though, except by comparison with 2003 UB313 -- they seem to be about 70-80%
of Pluto's diameter.

So now we can switch to wrangling drearily over whether the Solar System has
10 planets or only 8 (or 9, if you decide to rate 2003 UB313 as a planet but
not Pluto.) Alan Stern continues to insist that if something's large enough
to be rendered spherical by its gravity, it's a planet -- but that includes
Ceres and probably Pallas and Vesta, and in any case it containes
ambiguities of its own (even if you don't count Bizarro World from DC
Comics, which you may recall was cubical). Personally, I still favor
setting a maximum diameter of 2000 km as the arbitrary planet/nonplanet
dividing line, which will allow Pluto to retain its longtime seat in the
Planet Club without allowing too many newcomers to crash the party.

[Guest_Myran_*]

Bruce. Just wait until they have found a thousand objects with a diameter between that of Pluto and Mars's (and perhaps a few Earth sized ones also) , I dont think the schoolchildren of the future will have to memorize the names of a solar system of more of a thousand planets!