http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-d...5073000404.jpg

2003UB313

http://www.space.com/scienceastronom...ew_planet.html

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/news...-PLANET-DC.XML



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...073000403.html

The object is inclined by a whopping 45 degrees to the main plane of the solar system, where most of the other planets orbit. That's why it eluded discovery: nobody was looking there until now, Brown said.
Some astronomers view it as a Kuiper Belt object and not a planet. The Kuiper Belt is a region of frozen objects beyond Neptune.

Pluto is called a Kuiper Belt object by many astronomers. Brown himself has argued in the past for Pluto's demotion from planet status, because of its diminutive size and eccentric and inclined orbit.

But today he struck a different note.

"Pluto has been a planet for so long that the world is comfortable with that," Brown said in the teleconference. "It seems to me a logical extension that anything bigger than Pluto and farther out is a planet.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronom...ay_031201.html

If that is true, then I wonder how many other "planets" we haven't noticed yet. :eek:

Hmm, wonder if that's just an undiscovered moon of another planet...

Planet or not, it's surely what we can learn from it that makes it exciting. Good definition is anything Pluto size or bigger, is a singularity, and orbits a Star is a planet. I can't stand scientists that argue about this stuff just to try and justify their existance.

Anyway, thanks for the links, !!, look forward to reading them at home.

Also, love the names they give these things.

What happened to the 'planet' smiley that was discovered in the 90s? Did that turn out to be a moon?

I also don't get why they do these perfect computer generated images that probably don't look much like the planet. Let's see what they see through the telescope! Maybe I'll search for some photos.

Same thoughts here. They got a nice pic of pluto but the pic of the planet looks like a nice photoshop edit with the pretty halo around it. I would like to see it up close.

Hello,

Any picture of Pluto is a bright dot. Not even the Hubble Telescope can resolve the planet clear enough to see if there are clouds there, or ice.

Pluto has the interesting fact that it has a moon, Charon. The two orbit each other around a central mass point somewhere in space between them.

I have to wonder what name they propose for the object.

Christian

Wait, so which one in that picture is actually the planet they are talking about? Is it the actual planet you see, or is it the bright dot? I was thinking it was the bright dot, but I'm probably wrong.

I think its a graphical representation, because any planet that far away can not be seen through visual light, because it will not have hardly any light from the Sun to reflect. The dot is the sun, and the planet is the planet.

Also there are no other stars, the sky, (for want of a better word), would be filled with stars, which we unfortunately can't see from most of our planet due to the atmosphere and, (for us urban dwellers) light polution, .

This is a cool discovery even if the retards are going to argue the "is it a planet or not?" question to death. the news and nasa seem to think its a planet. not that
the media isn't ever wrong or misleading or anything like that...

definately a cool find.