Posted on 07/12/2016 8:03:24 AM PDT by BenLurkin
Pluto isn't quite as lonely as scientists had thought.
Astronomers have discovered another dwarf planet in the Kuiper Belt, the ring of icy objects beyond Neptune. But this newfound world, dubbed 2015 RR245, is much more distant than Pluto, orbiting the sun once every 700 Earth years, scientists said. (Pluto completes one lap around the sun every 248 Earth years.)
"The icy worlds beyond Neptune trace how the giant planets formed and then moved out from the sun," discovery team member Michele Bannister, of the University of Victoria in British Columbia, said in a statement. "They let us piece together the history of our solar system."
...
The exact size of 2015 RR245 is not yet known, but the researchers think it's about 435 miles (700 kilometers) wide. Pluto is the largest resident of the Kuiper Belt, with a diameter of 1,474 miles (2,371 km).
The research team first spotted 2015 RR245 in February of this year, while poring over images that the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope in Hawaii took in September 2015 as part of the ongoing Outer Solar System Origins Survey (OSSOS).
"There it was on the screen — this dot of light moving so slowly that it had to be at least twice as far as Neptune from the sun," Bannister said.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
80 degrees, 43% NE @ 4
No wonder it’s hard to breathe.
Good morning! I used to have some cat socks that OldTax-lady sent me, but I don’t think I can put together a pair anymore. Probably under the bed or buried in the closet ...
We were in no hurry to get started this morning, but it’s required. Tom left a little after 6:30 for school, and DP will leave with Elen at 7:30. Then I have a little while to chivvy the remaining crew until it’s time to leave around 9:40 for Kathleen’s riding lesson.
I just found a desk I want on Overstock.com. Small L-shape, hutch and three drawers. If I got it, I would leave it in the boxes until I got to St G, then see if one of my nephews would like to earn a few bucks putting it together.
The problem now, besides the money, of course, is I don’t know how much space I will have to work with, so I’ll have to wait until I go for my interview/acceptance tour. But it is perfect. Exactly what I was looking for. Even a printer shelf! And DRAWERS!
I hope it’s still available (or something like it) by the time I’m ready to move.
Yeah, that’s pretty darned expensive! And you don’t know what space you’ll have to work with when you get there.
Yep. Unknowns. But the desk is much cheaper than any I’ve seen at office supply stores or other online stores. It would be my last desk at any rate, so it’s not like I was going to swap it for something else in a couple of years.
There are probably six months to go before I know, so it’s just going to sit in my thoughts.
And speaking of thoughts, today is my other brother’s birthday, and I will call him, too, but the rumor is that he has Alzheimer’s so I don’t know if I will talk to him or to his wife. Last time I talked to him, he sounded pretty feeble and distracted, so if it is Alzheimer’s it’s probably moving fast. My eldest sister had it too, so I’m thinking it’s on their dad’s side of the family.
The four of us in my mother’s second family are all very healthy, including the brother whose birthday was Friday.
According to my mother, Alzheimer’s sometimes skips generations.
My father was very hard of hearing as well as having dementia, so talking on the phone didn’t work much. I used to send him cards with cat pictures often!
I guess we’ve moved on from “say it with flowers” to “say it with cats”.
I’m going to think about what kind of cat I’ll want to sent 0bama. I already know what I want to say.
You have to be subtle when sending symbolic cat messages to a sitting president.
My daughter weirds out when her cat, Kiwi, stares at the fridge. She doesn’t know whether Kiwi pushed something under or saw a roach go in.
Apparently, my brain is so antisoial it won't wave. It drives the doctors nuts trying to figure out why I'm nuts.
You might want to get Ovomit the perfect cat: A Javanese Temple Cat; larger than a housecat and known to go for the kidneys in a fight.
I dunno — sounds good to me.
ArGee’s 4th law of shopping: Anything that is perfect is not available. Anything that is available is not perfect.
ArGee’s first corollary: If it appears to be perfect and is available it the appearance will be wrong.
ArGee’s second corollary: If it is actually perfect and available it will be damaged in shipping.
That could be true. I don’t know much of my mother’s medical history. When she died, my elder sister got all her papers and things and never shared until she went to Houston with a box for my brother, containing papers and paintings from both my dad and my mother, because he was “the oldest.”
While I was in the laundry room, my computer died and restarted. GR-r-r-r-r-r!
Now I have to go unlock...
OK. I’m back.
I’ve decided I need to get a cart with drawers so I can put my shawls someplace out of the way. They take up too much closet space when on hangers.
I totally agree with the latter corollary.
But now, I have to go hang clothes.
78 degrees and 43%. No wind. Overcast. Ungh.
Kathleen is enjoying her riding lesson. It is pleasantly cool and breezy here in the shade. I figured out how to email pictures from my phone to my mother.
Wow. I like emailing pics from my phone, but I never see anything interesting, so I don’t email pics from my phone.
And now, I’m sleepy! It’s probably because I took a morphine pill plus a couple of Ibuprofen so I could hang up the clothes without sitting down in the middle of the job.
*yawn* Not smart, but necessary.
I have to write to my grandson. I didn’t get it done yesterday, dagnabit!
Oh for a nice fresh taco... ;o] It just sounds really good right now.
I don’t know whether my brain waves or not. I sometimes even wonder if it’s even there. Perhaps aliens came and exchanged it for mint jelly while I was sleeping. It’s happened before.
Looking around....
!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.