Heres a nice look
Posted on 09/14/2006 8:11:36 PM PDT by kingattax
Pluto has been given a new name to reflect its new status as a dwarf planet.
On Sept. 7, the former 9th planet was assigned the asteroid number 134340 by the Minor Planet Center (MPC), the official organization responsible for collecting data about asteroids and comets in our solar system.
The move reinforces the International Astronomical Union's (IAU) recent decision to strip Pluto of its planethood and places it in the same category as other small solar-system bodies with accurately known orbits.
Pluto's companion satellites, Charon, Nix and Hydra are considered part of the same system and will not be assigned separate asteroid numbers, said MPC director emeritus Brian Marsden. Instead, they will be called 134340 I, II and III, respectively.
There are currently 136,563 asteroid objects recognized by the MPC; 2,224 new objects were added last week, of which Pluto was the first.
Other notable objects to receive asteroid numbers included 2003 UB313, also known as "Xena," and the recently discovered Kuiper Belt objects 2003 EL61 and 2005 FY9. Their asteroid numbers are 136199, 136108 and 136472, respectively.
The MPC also issued a separate announcement stating that the assignment of permanent asteroid numbers to Pluto and other large objects located beyond the orbit of Neptune "does not preclude their having dual designations in possible separate catalogues of such bodies."
Marsden explained that the cryptic wording refers to the future possibility of creating a separate astronomical catalogue specific to dwarf planets. There might even be more than one catalogue created, he said.
The recent IAU decision implies "that there would be two catalogues of dwarf planets-one for just the trans-Neptunian Pluto type and the other for objects like Ceres, which has also been deemed a dwarf planet," Marsden told SPACE.com. "That's why that statement was put there, to reassure people who think there would be other catalogues that this numbering of Pluto doesn't preclude that."
Pluto's asteroid number was first reported today on the website of Sky and Telescope magazine.
What will they tell us next? That we're all aliens and that we really don't live on planet earth? Who are these people?
Rename the thing, too. And why do newly discovered moons and (now) asteroids and dwarf planets (some asteroids were already named, yes) continued to be named after pagans? Stop it already, and give them secular names.
It's a transneptunian object, and their has been conjecture since its discovery.
Screw those elitist scientists (so-called). Pluto will always be a planet to me -- the most distant planet!
I'm sure they're seeking grant monies to reverify their findings.
Yeah, what you said.....
Heres a nice look
I'm in for 12:20 to 12:30...
Pluto will always be a planet to me.
How impersonal!
I'm in for 12:40 to 12:50.
I wonder if you'll have to pay a fine if you blow off these artsy-fartsy "academics" and continue calling Pluto a planet. I'm a lot better with names and faces than I am with numbers.
There should be mass demonstrations against this planetary racism! HANDS OFF PLUTO!
I hear its new name is going to be 134340 Robertreich.
ROTFL!!!
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