New Planet Discovered (again)

[Famine]

Yes, the catchily named "2003UB313" has been identified as our NINTH planet*. It's the most distant object known which orbits the Sun - which it does in an ellipse at 45 degrees to the ecliptic, once every 560 years.

It is currently 9.7 BILLION miles (14.5 billion kilometres) from the Sun, though its orbit takes it to as close as the orbit of Neptune.

At 1,700 miles across it is much larger than Pluto and, unlike Quaoar and Sedna, qualifies for planetary status on size alone.

However, despite its distance, even amateur astronomers can track it in the early morning sky.

Story.


*Pluto is only a planet by tradition. It is too small to meet planetary requirements, though remains the largest non-planetary Kuiper Belt object.

 

[Andrew R]

Sounds interesting. I always likes space and stuff like that.


Nice find Famine.

 

[EvilToast]

NICE GJ FAMINE. 👍

 

[Ev0]

If this object is big enough to qualify as a planet, I wonder why we have only just discovered it now, especially if some guy in his backyard with a telescope can view it. And, 9 billion miles isn't too far away either(as far as objects in space go).

 

[Diego440]

I was going to post the same thread. I found the story while nerding around in NASA

 

[Famine]

If this object is big enough to qualify as a planet, I wonder why we have only just discovered it now, especially if some guy in his backyard with a telescope can view it. And, 9 billion miles isn't too far away either(as far as objects in space go).

Its orbit, like that of Pluto (discovered in 1930) is not in the same plane as the rest of the planets in the Solar System. It is a 45 degrees, so you have to look up (or down) to see it.

An object 9.7 billion miles away and 1,700 miles across subtends an angle of less than one ten thousandth of a degree. That's pretty small.

 

[Small_Fryz]

nice find famine.

All of this is pretty crap until we build a space craft fast enough to actually travel to some planets

 

[Famine]

Voyager 1, Voyager 2, Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11, Helios A and Helios B have all acheived Solar Escape Velocity.

Voyager 1 is now 8.8 billion miles from Earth (in the opposite direction), travelling at 60 degrees to the ecliptic. It has passed the termination shock and is now in the heliosheath. It is within a couple of tens of millions of miles of becoming truely interstellar.

 

[Small_Fryz]

I mean with people and in decent time. Didnt the voyagers get realse in the 70's?

 

[Touring Mars]

I saw this on the news this morning as well... stuff like this puts the cosmos into perspective (kind of)... that something the size of a planet (albeit a wee one) and in cosmic terms right next door (orbiting our very own Sun), and we've only just spotted it now... it's amazing!

I wonder what they should call it....

I know, what about GT Planet? 💡

 

[Jordan]

I know, what about GT Planet? 💡

Great idea! I heard it looked similar to this in a telescope:

 

[kennythebomb]

I saw this on the news this morning as well... stuff like this puts the cosmos into perspective (kind of)... that something the size of a planet (albeit a wee one) and in cosmic terms right next door (orbiting our very own Sun), and we've only just spotted it now... it's amazing!

I wonder what they should call it....

I know, what about GT Planet? 💡

Damn...I post a thread thinking no one else surely would have done this, and to top it off you posted my exact same "joke"

Sorry.... didn't think I would have to do a search on a just discovered planet

 

[VT]

Thats friggin awesome!

 

[Omnis]

"2003UB313"

ROOBUBIB! planet 1337.

edit: You think they should call this planet Bacchus?

you know....because it's so off course and stuff.

 

[LoudMusic]

Its orbit, like that of Pluto (discovered in 1930) is not in the same plane as the rest of the planets in the Solar System. It is a 45 degrees, so you have to look up (or down) to see it.

An object 9.7 billion miles away and 1,700 miles across subtends an angle of less than one ten thousandth of a degree. That's pretty small.

Quite.

For comparison's sake, imagine trying to spot a gnat at the opposite end of a football field. You can use any instrument you'd like, and the gnat is moving in a constant flight path at a constant speed. Though I'm not going to tell you what speed or direction. You'd probably look at standard "gnat flying altituide", but you're wrong - this is a super-stellar gnat. He flies 30 meters off the ground. And his flight path isn't a straight line, it's arc'd in two directions.

Oh? There's a gnat down there? Took me a while to see it

(:

 

[a6m5]

*Pluto is only a planet by tradition. It is too small to meet planetary requirements, though remains the largest non-planetary Kuiper Belt object.

The news I read said it is the 10th planet, not counting the smaller one that didn't qualify to be considered planet....

I wonder what they should call it....

I know, what about GT Planet? 💡

I knew this was coming.

 

[LoudMusic]

I heard / read somewhere several months ago that they had found a couple other large objects orbiting Earth that were big but not big enough to be called moons. I found it relatively difficult to believe, but thought anything could be possible. Any truth to this?

 

[a6m5]

I heard / read somewhere several months ago that they had found a couple other large objects orbiting Earth that were big but not big enough to be called moons. I found it relatively difficult to believe, but thought anything could be possible. Any truth to this?

Must've been a lot smaller. It sounds interesting though.

 

[Famine]

I heard / read somewhere several months ago that they had found a couple other large objects orbiting Earth that were big but not big enough to be called moons. I found it relatively difficult to believe, but thought anything could be possible. Any truth to this?

Could be Sedna and Quaoar - Sedna was discovered last year at about 8 billion miles distant, but is smaller than Pluto and can't be classified as a planet.

a6m5 - Pluto is only a planet by tradition.

The search for a ninth planet was quite fervent at the time, to fit in with Hubble's (the man, not the telescope) predicition. When Tombaugh discovered a ninth large object moving around the Sun in 1930, everyone went nuts, and it was dubbed "The Ninth Planet". Never mind the fact that there is absolutely no astronomical definition of "planet" to which Pluto can actually lay claim to being a planet.

People say it orbits the sun. Well, so do the hundreds of thousands of asteroids and comets in the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud. They aren't planets.

People say it has a moon - Charon. Well, so do many asteroids (including Sedna AND Quaoar). One, called Ida, which is only 5 miles across has a Moon called Dactyl, which is only 100 yards across...

Pluto simply isn't big enough. 2003UB313, though no-one knows precisely how large it is (we can say how small it isn't and how big it isn't, based on position, composition and albedo, giving us a range), IS big enough.

 

[Small_Fryz]

So that could be the 9th planet that hubble was on about?

Why did he predict their was 9?

 

[a6m5]

a6m5 - Pluto is only a planet by tradition.

The search for a ninth planet was quite fervent at the time, to fit in with Hubble's (the man, not the telescope) predicition. When Tombaugh discovered a ninth large object moving around the Sun in 1930, everyone went nuts, and it was dubbed "The Ninth Planet". Never mind the fact that there is absolutely no astronomical definition of "planet" to which Pluto can actually lay claim to being a planet.

People say it orbits the sun. Well, so do the hundreds of thousands of asteroids and comets in the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud. They aren't planets.

People say it has a moon - Charon. Well, so do many asteroids (including Sedna AND Quaoar). One, called Ida, which is only 5 miles across has a Moon called Dactyl, which is only 100 yards across...

Pluto simply isn't big enough. 2003UB313, though no-one knows precisely how large it is (we can say how small it isn't and how big it isn't, based on position, composition and albedo, giving us a range), IS big enough.

Gotcha. Very informative. Thanks, big guy!

 

[Famine]

So that could be the 9th planet that hubble was on about?

Why did he predict their was 9?

The relative motion of the other planets and the Sun indicate there being more mass in orbit than the 8 planets known at the time.

It's exactly the same way we detect extrasolar planets - look at a star and watch it wobble. If it wobbles then there's something orbiting it (it's exerting gravitational influence on something else, but the something else is exerting gravitational influence on it, so it wobbles).

What we've found so far are a group of planetissimals, which may well account for Hubble's extra mass, rather than clearly-defined planets. Even this largest newcomer is smaller (likely to be smaller...) than our Moon (~1,700 miles compared to 2,100 miles across). Put together with 1,200 miles Pluto and 800 mile Sedna and Quaoar you've got matter the equivalent of 1/63 of the Earth, or 2/3 that of Mercury. Add on all of the asteroids and you've got enough stuff to make up at least a Mars-sized-body, if not an Venus/Earth-sized one.

 

[Funkshen]

Hah, i had no idea about this. i shoudl watch news more often.

I wonder how far we'll be able to reach in the up coming decades. And what we'll find?. It's rather exciting.

 

[Small_Fryz]

Makes lots of sense, thanks for that Famine 👍

 

[Danoff]

I rather think it needs an atmosphere AND be a certain size to be a planet but then we might disqualify mercury, pluto, and the new guy. Which means that we'd be down to just 7 planets.

If pluto is a planet then maybe charon should be a planet (which would make it a dual planet system because right now charon is pluto's moon) - in which case we would have 11 planets (including the new guy).

I think this its cool - but it's really only cool from a terminology point of view. We know there are lots and lots of objects out there past pluto - so its no surprise that we were able to find one bigger than pluto (which is small). It's just kinda cool that we could end up with a different number of planets in the solar system when this discussion is over with.

 

[Sage]

More… planets…

 

[a6m5]

More… planets…

You're not gonna eat it, are you?

 

[Omnis]

Is it made out of cheese?

 

[VT]

Is it made out of cheese?

DUDE!!! A whole planet made out of cheese! That would be friggen awesome!

 

[Omnis]

They should've made Voyager look like a fondue fork, damn it.