Posted on 09/13/2006 7:57:54 PM PDT by TFFKAMM
A distant, icy rock whose discovery shook up the solar system and led to Pluto's planetary demise has been given a name: Eris.
The christening of Eris, named after the Greek goddess of chaos and strife, was announced by the International Astronomical Union on Wednesday. Weeks earlier, the professional astronomers' group stripped Pluto of its planethood under new controversial guidelines.
Since its discovery last year, Eris, which had been known as 2003 UB313, ignited a debate about what constitutes a planet.
Astronomers were split over how to classify the object because there was no universal definition. Some argued it should be welcomed as the 10th planet since it was larger than Pluto, but others felt Pluto was not a full-fledged planet.
After much bickering, astronomers last month voted to shrink the solar system to eight planets, downgrading Pluto to a "dwarf planet," a category that also includes Eris and the asteroid Ceres.
Eris' discoverer, Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology, said the name was an obvious choice, calling it "too perfect to resist."
In mythology, Eris caused a quarrel among goddesses that sparked the Trojan War. In real life, Eris forced scientists to define a planet that eventually led to Pluto getting the boot. Soon after Pluto's dismissal from the planet club, hundreds of scientists circulated a petition protesting the decision.
Eris' moon also received a formal name: Dysnomia, the daughter of Eris known as the spirit of lawlessness.
Eris, which measures about 70 miles wider than Pluto, is the farthest known object in the solar system at 9 billion miles away from sun. It is also the third brightest object located in the Kuiper belt, a disc of icy debris beyond the orbit of Neptune...
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Something to do with her daughter Persephone, pommegranite seeds, and the seasons, IIRC.
And...
Eris' moon also received a formal name: Dysnomia, the daughter of Eris known as the spirit of lawlessness.
"Bada dum, psst!" GROAN! LOL! ;-)
Nope, that's Zyra....and it's comming right for us!!!! RUN!!!!
Since this is the largest of the dwarf planets, it's a freak and too large to be included in their number. So out it goes... ;')
The Guinness Book of World Records thought of it first (so far as I know)...
Does Eris have a symbol?
Chaos and takin' names...
Michael Brown wasted no time in adding "dwarf planet" to his page:
http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/planetlila/index.html
But he hasn't updated the name yet!
The millihelen was one of the more memorable items in a PHYSICS TODAY humor feature dating from the 1970's. It was in the form of a challenge to match symbols, units, and other items with definitions. I remember the terabull and the femtobismol, along with "alpha alpha" ( cattle feed ) Avogadro's number ( in a Rome directory, ) and Galileo ( Leo's girlfriend. ) ... there were many more!
INDEED. Thanks.
To wit: Can you spell
SIGNS IN THE HEAVENS
and
SIGNS OF THE TIMES???
So, do the idiot satanic puppet masters also control . . .
planet naming?
Sheesh.
#$%@!
KALOS means beautiful, and KALLISTA is the superlative form ... beautifulest
I hear that .... there's this heavenly body that keeps moving on me ....
.... if you know what I mean
In the Ukrainian language, "wormwood" is "chernobyl." Make of it what you will.
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