It's another world ... but is it our 10th planet?

The Australian ^ | 3/15/04 | Louise Milligan

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

SCIENTISTS have found a new world orbiting the solar system – more than 3 billion kilometres further away from the Sun than Pluto and 40 years away from Earth in a space shuttle.

NASA is expected to announce today the discovery of the space object, which some experts believe could be a new planet.

It is provisionally known as Sedna, after the Inuit goddess of the sea.

The discovery of Sedna – 10 billion kilometres from Earth – is a testament to the new generation of high-powered telescopes.

Measurements suggest Sedna's diameter is almost 2000km – the biggest find in the solar system since Pluto was discovered 74 years ago. It is believed to be made of ice and rock, and is slightly smaller than Pluto.

The find will reignite the debate over what constitutes a planet. Some scientists claim even Pluto is too small to count as one.

According to astronomer Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology, who discovered Sedna, there could be many other new worlds orbiting the Sun and waiting to be discovered.

"Sedna is very big, and much further out than previous discoveries," he said. "I'm pretty sure there are other large bodies up there too."

But physicist and cosmologist Paul Davies, of Sydney's Macquarie University, said it was folly to describe Sedna as a planet. "It's fun, it's exciting, but let's keep it in proportion," Professor Davies said yesterday.

He said scientists had known for "a decade or so the solar system does not come to an abrupt halt" and there were a number of "planetessimals" or little planets, like Sedna.

[Carry_Okie]

Sedna? They missed a big opportunity. They coulda called it Hell.

Then every day would be a cold day in Hell.

(My apologies to the forum.)

[Thoro]

Gah! You beat me to the Planet X picture!

[230FMJ]

"I don't think they've named anything after Bacchus yet."


Wine-ot?

[Antoninus]

I dunno, I think Uranus is worse. Besides, I think they ran out of Greco-Roman gods already, and its better than calling it moehammud or something.

They will never run out of Greco-Roman gods. They had a god for *everything,* including three or four separate deities just for the constituent parts of a shaft of wheat.

[xp38]

It takes Pluto 248 earth years to orbit the sun. None of us (using 120 years as an upper limit) ever live even a half Plutonian year. Whatever the orbital period Sedna has it will far exceed Pluto.

[ngc6656]

SO HOW DOES THIS AFFECT MY ASTROLOGY CHART WHEN SEDNA IS RISING?

You bring up an interesting point. No horoscope cast prior to the discover of Sedna could possibly be correct because Sedna's influence wasn't taken into consideration. Will the misled be refunded their money?

[Brett66]

It appears that the Spitzer space telescope made this discovery. It seems that it's about the size of Pluto, it's only a matter of time before we find something in the Kuiper belt larger than Pluto.

NASA Schedules News Briefing About Unusual Solar Object

The discovery of a mysterious object in our solar system is the topic of a listen-and-log-on news briefing on Monday, March 15, at 1 p.m. EST.

Dr. Michael Brown, associate professor of planetary astronomy, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif. will present his discovery of the most distant object ever detected orbiting the sun. He and colleagues made the discovery as part of a NASA-funded research project.

The virtual news briefing is only for reporters. Reporters in the United States can listen to the briefing and participate in the question-and-answer session by calling: 888/889-1963. Overseas media may call: 1/773/756-4808. Calls to these lines should start at 12:50 p.m. EST. The passcode is: "objects."

Graphics supporting this news briefing will be posted Monday on the Internet by 1 p.m. EST:

Spitzer Space Telescope

[mikrofon]

Strange, who could that be at the door at this hour?

It's a musical telegram.

[Husker24]

If the Hubbel can supposedly see to the edge of the Universe, than why cant it get a clear picture of this planet in our Solar System.

[JasonC]

Hubble can see entire galaxies that far away - i.e. things with billions of stars with nuclear furnace cores throwing scads of light into space. This is a dirty snowball that reflects a little light from the sun. You can see a car's headlights farther away at night than a moth, right? Right next to a bright light you can see moths, but get a long way away from the nearest lamp, and they don't exactly stand out - not having their own light source.

[ngc6656]

You can see a car's headlights farther away at night than a moth, right? Right next to a bright light you can see moths, but get a long way away from the nearest lamp, and they don't exactly stand out - not having their own light source.

Good analogy.

When I read Husker24's question my impression was that he was asking why doesn't HST provide an image showing a planetary disk with features visible on it, so let's look at that. The angular size of Sedna as seen from Earth is 0.06 arc seconds. The resolving power of HST is 0.04 arc seconds. HST should reveal that Sedna is an extended source of light -- a tiny disk -- and not a pinpoint source like stars, but the image would be much too small for any surface features to emerge.

[DannyTN]

Crash it into Mars. That would increase the mass of mars allowing Mars to retain more atmosphere. It would also provide more water.

[Quix]

As I understand it, Chris Talk is no longer among our kosher fellowship. Conceivably some could track him down and ask him but I don't know how long that would take.

As to my own opinion . . . I don't know.

My moderately faint memories from tons of reading is that it's likely that we have known of such in eons past and records lost.

But, to my memory, the 'data' consists of very tiny bits of puzzle pieces of inadequate size to be concidered even a whole puzzle piece. One can make all kinds of outlandish assumptions based on them but to what end remains to be seen.

imho.

[Quix]

As I understand it, Chris Talk is no longer among our kosher fellowship. Conceivably some could track him down and ask him but I don't know how long that would take.

As to my own opinion . . . I don't know.

My moderately faint memories from tons of reading is that it's likely that we have known of such in eons past and records lost.

But, to my memory, the 'data' consists of very tiny bits of puzzle pieces of inadequate size to be concidered even a whole puzzle piece. One can make all kinds of outlandish assumptions based on them but to what end remains to be seen.

imho.

[Quix]

As I understand it, Chris Talk is no longer among our kosher fellowship. Conceivably some could track him down and ask him but I don't know how long that would take.

As to my own opinion . . . I don't know.

My moderately faint memories from tons of reading is that it's likely that we have known of such in eons past and records lost.

But, to my memory, the 'data' consists of very tiny bits of puzzle pieces of inadequate size to be concidered even a whole puzzle piece. One can make all kinds of outlandish assumptions based on them but to what end remains to be seen.

imho.

[Quix]

As I understand it, Chris Talk is no longer among our kosher fellowship. Conceivably some could track him down and ask him but I don't know how long that would take.

As to my own opinion . . . I don't know.

My moderately faint memories from tons of reading is that it's likely that we have known of such in eons past and records lost.

But, to my memory, the 'data' consists of very tiny bits of puzzle pieces of inadequate size to be concidered even a whole puzzle piece. One can make all kinds of outlandish assumptions based on them but to what end remains to be seen.

imho.

[Quix]

As I understand it, Chris Talk is no longer among our kosher fellowship. Conceivably some could track him down and ask him but I don't know how long that would take.

As to my own opinion . . . I don't know.

My moderately faint memories from tons of reading is that it's likely that we have known of such in eons past and records lost.

But, to my memory, the 'data' consists of very tiny bits of puzzle pieces of inadequate size to be concidered even a whole puzzle piece. One can make all kinds of outlandish assumptions based on them but to what end remains to be seen.

imho.

[Quix]

OOPS. STILL GETTING MOSTLY ERROR MESSAGES WHEN TRYING TO POST here in NW New Mexico.

[Knuckle Sandwich Combo]

How about Nibiru? Anunnaki?

[fella]

Could this be the "nemisis" that the Art Bell crowd has been talking about for the lasr few years?