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 ...
I will! But I’ll be a bit late, preferring to go early tomorrow morning, since the iHop I’m thinking of is open 24 hours. And will be less populated. It’s a busy place, getting lots of tourists. The one that’s about a mile from here doesn’t open until 0700 and that’s almost lunch time for me!
Anyway, I will enjoy it, and toast to you and Bilbo!
We read the chapter from “The Hobbit” in which they arrived in Lake Town. It is shorter than the birthday party chapter in “The Fellowship of the Ring,” and also, we knew where the book was.
I think you should read the section on Tom Bombadil. That way everyone can have fun asking, “What in the world does THAT have to do with anything?”
I did sort of like ol’ Tom. And Withywindel is a lot more fun to say than conodoguinet.
Conodoguinet is a real creek in the Harrisburg, PA area. It took me almost 3 years to figure out how to say it.
CON o de GWEN it.
I have been outside since 0930. One of my neighbors had her power shut off, and that is a no-no in a senior community. The office has tried to get in touch with her daughter, but to no avail.
And they contacted the manager (at another property) to let him know so NV Power will get off their butts. The poor ol’ gal can’t use a cell phone and only has a landline; she is also half blind. So a few of us have been sitting with her.
I’ve been having chest pains again, but I need to go back out in case Charlie needs to take a break.
The children liked Tom and the Forest.
Wow, good luck! I hope your neighbor gets her power back soon!
That would be ARDEC. They're out there in Picatinny Arsenal about an hour from the George..
;-)
ARDEC seems to have spelled their own name wrong. “Arament”?
Good evening, TC.
Ended up on the beach for the afternoon.
The beach is made of very small round stones. Impossible to walk on other than a slow plod.
Sun, sea, surf......bliss. The water was not cold, as such, refrigerated but not actually cold. :)
If you look up Durdledoor.
(The tail is waging.)
Beautiful! I assume it's called the "Jurassic Coast" because of fossil find?
No, they research how to make things dryer.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
I’ve been reading the discussions on the rioting in Charlotte, which might as well be on the moon for all the difference it makes out here in the ‘burbs. It looks like the Commies are planning more for tonight.
It is interesting to be there when they are blowing things up. The area where they do that is beyond where my 'clearance' allowed me to go but I did get into the building where they mixed/poured assorted mixtures into assorted shell casings (because the building contained certain equipment I was charged with maintaining.) Last time I was in there they were playing with 155mm howitzer shells..
And one building not in the 'secure enclosure' but close to the 'test area' was situated where the lay of the land tended to funnel the blast wave in their general direction. And blow out the plate glass on the entrance doors when they set off the 155's. Often enough that they finally replaced the glass with plexiglass or lexan or some such transparent plasticstuff that flexed with the shock wave instead of shattering...
Yes, explosions are fun. I expect just about everyone would rather blow stuff up than practice spelling.
Here's the back of that building I mentioned where they mixed/poured various thingies. The slides are there for a reason.. ;-)
Cool picture.
If you follow the rock strata along the coast you can cover something like 100 million years in just a few miles.
There are one or two fossil beaches where if you don’t find something a service dog is recommended.
For example, I found a rock full of bivalves....well it found me.
I believe that something like 99.9% of all fossil finds are clams.
*Mind drift alert*
“99.9% of fossil finds are clams”
Gondolas, more confounded Gondolas!
The sea must have been heaving with shellfish.
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