Unusual Solar Object???

[FluffyMcDeath]

What will NASA announce on Monday???

Is it a fossil? Water? A space ship? The rock that's gonna do us all in?

We'll have to wait I guess?

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2004/mar/HQ_n04040_solar_object.html

[KennyR]

A rock? A chunk of ice?

Much as I appreciate NASA's attempt at generating suspense and interest, it isn't going to work for long if they keep announcing things that seem to be exciting but then turn out to be boring to the layman. ;-)

[FluffyMcDeath]

KennyR wrote:
A rock?

But doubtless, an unusual one.

[blobrana]

An even bigger tranplutonian object?

But then again NASA's Cassini spacecraft is heading for saturn righ now so it`s probably something they`ve spotted in the rings....




Place your bets now...

[blobrana]

Hum,
They do seem to have spotted the most distant object orbiting the sun...
It`s about 1/3 the size of the earth, 3 billion kilometres further away from the Sun than Pluto.
This object has been provisionally named "Sedna", after the Inuit goddess of the sea.

Measurements suggest that Sedna has a diameter of more than 1,200 miles, making it the biggest find in the solar system since Pluto was discovered 74 years ago.

The official NASA announcement will be made at 1800 UTC 15th March.

[FluffyMcDeath]

blobrana wrote:
Hum,
They do seem to have spotted the most distant object orbiting the sun...
It`s about 1/3 the size of the earth, 3 billion kilometres further away from the Sun than Pluto.
This object has been provisionally named "Sedna", after the Inuit goddess of the sea.

Measurements suggest that Sedna has a diameter of more than 1,200 miles, making it the biggest find in the solar system since Pluto was discovered 74 years ago.

The official NASA announcement will be made at 1800 UTC 15th March.

Spot on. You win the first prize.

KennyR gets runner up prize for also being right, but very much less specific.

[blobrana]

Er,
Just a lucky guess...
Seemingly it was discovered by astronomers using California's Mount Palomar Observatory, way back on November 14, 2003.
Sedna, or 2003 VB16, as it was originally designated, will have follow-up studies to measure its thermal radiation to determine how hot (or cool)it is, and therefore provide a better estimate of its size. However the planetoid is usually cold; the temperatures never rise above minus 240 degrees Celsius...
 There is indirect evidence that Sedna may have a moon. (rotates slower than expected... )  
A notable feature of Sedna is its reddish colour (and it`s very shiny), which doesn`t help the measurements either...

If you want to see it,  it`s currently 13 billion kilometres away, in the constellation Cetus  (Position J2000: RA: 3h15m10s Dec: +5d38m15s), hehe, but over the next 72 years it will become brighter and closer.
After which it will head out into the oort cloud again, reaching a whopping 130 billion kilometres from the Sun, taking 10500 years for one solar orbit,


(NOTE: Er, you do need a 200 incher to see it though)...
 :-o

[KennyR]

So now we have a conundrum. Sedna may be bigger than Pluto and may have a moon. So there are only two options for the planetary catalogers.

1) Sedna is not accepted as a planet. But then Pluto might have to lose its designation as well, knocking us back to 8 planets. That's especially probable if a bigger planetoid is found, which is looking more likely every year.

2) Sedna is accepted as a planet, moving us up to 10. However there might be many, many other planetoids as big as or even bigger than Sedna that we haven't seen orbiting the Sun within the Oort. Do we then add the next 20 or so of them as they're found?

It's like the situation with the gas giant moons: Voyager discovered new ones, they were added, but it was later found that there were 30+ rocks of the same size. Where do we draw the line? Whats a planet and what's not?

[blobrana]

Yea,  the International Astronomical Union, which governs the naming of astronomical objects, isn't very happy...
It`s `improper` to announce a name and assume it will be taken up. The proper protocol is to submit a name after it has been submitted to the board, so there is a possibility that they may not accept the name at all...

As for pluto they refuse to downgrade the planet status because of it`s history...

And we may find an even bigger object, (perhaps in the direction of the galactic centre), that we will have to class as a planet; after all there were 100 of planets (like earth size) in the early solar system, and that got kicked out into the oort cloud...
I personally think that naming the new oort cloud objects after cold norther mythologies is ,er, cool...

["Sedna is the Inuit goddess of the sea who was originally a woman thrown into icy Arctic waters by her father. He was attempting to appease another god who had tricked Sedna into marrying him and from whom she was fleeing. When she tried to get back into the boat, her father beat her frozen hands, which when they broke off, turned into whales and other large mammals. While she sank, she did not die but became the goddess of the sea."]

[JaXanim]

Yea, why don't these things try to comply with the natural order that we have set down for 'em?

I mean, if a planet is a planet, it should comply with our planetary rules shouldn't it. It shouldn't suddenly appear out of the blue and make things complicated for us.

If it's not a planet but just a snowball, why can't it behave like snowballs ought to behave. Why must it be so big when it should be much smaller. What does this puffball think it is?

Why doesn't the universe work as it should?

JaX

[blobrana]

Hum,
that was a bit Borg-like...

(You will comply - resistance is futile...)


I personally just try to accept that there are things in the universe that are `beyond` our normal everyday (macro)logic...
[but deep down there is a simple and  beautiful harmony to everything - Om Mani Padme Hum,]




 :zen smilie: