bummer, not a planet, just a really big asteroid, reminiscent of Toutatis:
http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/2003EL61/
"2003 EL61 is one of the strangest known objects in the solar system. It is a big across as Pluto, but shaped like a cigar. Or perhaps like a football [American-style]. Or, most accurately, a foot ball that has too little air in it and has been stepped on. It spins on its axis every 4 hours like a football that has been kicked. It appears to be made almost entirely of rock, but with a glaze of ice over the surface. And it is surrounded by two satellites... Very soon 2003 EL61 will get a real name, much like Sedna and Quaoar and Orcus. But when first discovered these objects are only given 'preliminary designations' until they are confirmed and well know. There is little need of confirmation of 2003 EL61 as it has now been seen after the fact in images from more than 50 years ago! We will thus propose a name to the International Astronomical Union and that name will become the permanent -- and with luck more melodious -- name of 2003 EL61."
graphic:
http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/2003EL61/rotate.gif
speakin' of Toutatis:
Huge asteroid to fly past Earth (Toutatis hoax - how and why)
space.com | 04/09/29
Posted on 09/29/2004 5:00:09 AM PDT by Truth666 [no longer with us]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1230167/posts
"This is the text that media use to sell this hoax. (see http://edition.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/09/28/asteriod.fly/index.html). Astronomers know nothing about the universe, except for a few large bodies with regular orbits. Any idiot should have understood that the latest by April 14, 2004, as comet Bradfield (diameter : 10,000 km) popped out of nowhere to become the largest body ever recorded in the inner solar system."
