Friday, July 29, 2005
2003 UB313 is now the 10th planet
It has now been confirmed that 2003 UB313, the largest object found in the solar system since the discovery of Neptune in 1846 (it's larger than Pluto), is the 10th planet of the solar system.
Now that 2003 UB313 has been established to be larger than Pluto, what do we do with Pluto? Do we allow it to remain a planet or should we rename it a Trans-Neptunian object? Or classify it as an asteroid in the Kuiper belt, as several people have suggested?
It is more than twice as far away as Pluto, in a puzzling orbit, at an angle to the orbits of the other planets. Astronomers think that at some point in its history Neptune likely flung it into its highly-inclined 44 degree orbit. It is currently 97 Earth-Sun distances away - more than twice Pluto's average distance from the Sun. Its discoverers are Michael Brown of Caltech, Chad Trujillo of the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii and David Rabinowitz of Yale University.
Now that 2003 UB313 has been established to be larger than Pluto, what do we do with Pluto? Do we allow it to remain a planet or should we rename it a Trans-Neptunian object? Or classify it as an asteroid in the Kuiper belt, as several people have suggested?
