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 ...
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Still and dark here.
Mornig
The Sun has been up here for a couple of hours.
Now it’s time to power down for a few hours.
See yow this afternoon. :)
Are those two beauties yours?
Morning, guys. Nice cats and dogs!
I found out yesterday that the Upnorth dog is not a basset hound but a beagle/redbone mix. Woof!
Awwww.... Squee! I love sleepy kitties. They look so harmless. ;o]
Still is the big one and Dark is the little one? Or do I have them mixed up?
Beagle and redbone. Wow. Hunting dog for sure...maybe he will deal with the critter population in the neighborhood. I hope Jake sets him straight on what are “critters” and what are catz.
Laundry day, and though I wanted to sleep another half hour, I woke up at 0300. So here I am. I’ll head for the laundry room in a little over an hour. I’ll be there about 90 minutes, since it’s linens day, so I took an extra half morphine. It’s the only way I’ll get through the bed-making. Which I could do now, if I felt energetic. Which I don’t.
At least when I come home, everything will be folded and ready to put away. Yay, me. ;o]
Maybe the Upnorth dog will deal with the rabbits so that I don’t find more headless corpses.
Good morning! Most of the Offspring have been spotted. I’m going to sing a loud, happy, Spanish song at those who are still in bed.
Good tagline!
Nope, mine is Border Collie with a bit of Lab. The Lab part being the deep chest and webbed toes. All the positive characteristics of the Border Collie are present, he’s just bigger and maybe not quite as fast as a full bred. Old now.
When now gets old it gets to be then.
Now and then is about all that's left to some of us old folks. Back in the day we talked about "when I grow up", but most of us have given that up as a bad idea.
LOL...quite so on some days.
It’s important to celebrate the little things in life.
Because, being little, they can hide in all sorts of unexpected places to exact revenge.
I discovered rabbits in the front shrubbery of the PA estate.
They are welcome there, of course, if they will quit digging up the ground cloth or if they will eat the weeds.
I figured out it was a bad idea after it was too late.
I also figured out that when you grow down society decides you have mental issues.
Personally, I think they’re jealous.
Now, then. That was an interesting analysis. ;o]
I see it...
Ah, yes...NOW I see it!
!
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