Tenth planet discovered

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October 7th, 2002, 08:10 PM
problemchild

Tenth planet discovered

Wow. Very cool stuff.

Quote:

A new planet-like object has been found circling the Sun more than one and a half billion kilometres beyond Pluto.

Quaoar, as it has been dubbed, is about 1,280 kilometres across (800 miles) and is the biggest find in the Solar System since Pluto itself 72 years ago.

The object is about one-tenth the diameter of Earth and circles the Sun every 288 years.

This bit was especially interesting to me:

Quote:

However, Quaoar is not an official name - at least not yet. In a few months, the International Astronomical Union, astronomy's governing body, will vote on it.

I cast my vote for Mondas. :D

OK, if you're not a Doctor Who fan, it's a reference to the story The Tenth Planet .

Full story is here.
October 7th, 2002, 08:20 PM
t2k2

Yeah, that's pretty cool. What ever happened to the discovery of another solar system much like ours. I remember in the news they were all hyped up about the possibility of another Solar System having life, especially like that of the Earth or something like that. I will have to see if there are other posts about it, or look it up to find a story or something. I'm just curious.
October 7th, 2002, 08:21 PM
El Diablo

heh, not exactly the 10th planet, but it IS the largest object located in our solar system since they found Pluto. There is some theory/debate that Pluto is not in fact a planet after all but is a planetoid like this object (dubbed Quaoar by the team that found it) and is just outside of the Kuiper Belt.

It is an interesting find though.

El Diablo
October 7th, 2002, 10:05 PM
Common_Exploit

That's an interesting find and something that could be thought down. I think that whatever name they call it will be fine, I'm just amazed they found a "10th planet". That's really cool and I'm always interested in this kind of news. Thank you ProblemChild! ;)
October 7th, 2002, 10:16 PM
er0k

i thought we already had 10 plantes, cheron plutos moon sorta, is almost the size of pluto, so they call it the tenth planet and pluto and cheron the twin planets..... or at least last time i checked.
October 7th, 2002, 10:52 PM
silentstalker

Erok man your right, they do call Pluto and it's moon Cheron twin planets. Anyway, good find ProblemChild ;), you should float up their and carve

"Antionline"

On the center of it, so whenever we look up we'll see Antionline's name up on the planet, and the space peeps will be foced to call the planet "Antionlinious" ;)

Silentstalker
[email protected]
October 9th, 2002, 01:34 AM
x acidreign x

It is a widely held opinion that pluto isn't a planet at all..
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98feb/pluto.htm

PS. I thought Pluto was officially not a planet, but i was unable to find any information to support that, so i guess that was just a brain fart... my bad.
October 9th, 2002, 02:41 AM
gghornet

Pluto is a planet,but astronomers now don't think it should have been classified as one because they now realize that it's nothing significant in our universe.As far as cheron goes,I've heard it and Pluto called the twin planets,but I don't think it's actually classified as a planet.
October 9th, 2002, 02:50 AM
Scorp666

I vote that we name that new found "planet", Scorpionia ! :)

I think it's a nice discovery though I doubt any man will ever put a foot there since it must be rather cold (Especially in winter) hehehe
October 9th, 2002, 03:29 AM
plclp10

Actually, this isn't the first time there's been a discovery of a 10th planet, few years ago , there was supossely discovered the 10th planet, but then, they just dismissed it.
October 9th, 2002, 05:25 AM
|The|Specialist

Actually I think they found this planet years back but the telescopes couldn't see it well back then and soon after that peaple tottaly forgot about it intil now.