Possible 10th Planet Discovered
It's the start of a new week and I'm still not used to going to school. Unfortunately, as much as I wish I could stay at home and rot, I can't. Plus I still have to do my Final Year Project (F.Y.P.) and tutorials. Sigh... I really miss working in that way, at the very least you can always relax when you reach home, and you are earning $$ as well. Which is also why I still wonder why working people say studying is better...maybe it's cos of the long holidays?
Well, today's topic is about Astronomy, the finding of a new possible planet to be exact. Scientists have found a larger than Pluto (the 9th planet from the Sun) sized planet about 3 times as far away as Pluto is at present. It also has a similar surface covered by methane ice like Pluto.
The planet has been designated 2003 UB313, cos it was actually discovered in October 2003, but it was not until January this year that Mike Brown, the Caltech astronomer who announced the discovery, realised that it had potential to be a planet. UB313 also has a 560-year orbit that is tilted 44° from the orbital plane of the Earth and most other planets. A nice little Java 3D applet can be found here that shows all the planets and their orbits with UB313.
However, the discovery of UB313 has also brought up an old debate of what should be defined as a planet. In fact some astronomers claim that even Pluto shouldn't be considered a planet at all. The International Astronomical Union has so far avoided a formal definition but UB313 may force them to create one, either to accept or reject it as a planet.
Well, I hope that UB313 will be classified a planet and that more planets will be found. That would certainly prove exciting for the astronomical arena. However, what I really wish for is the day when we can all go for a holiday on another planet, and hopefully it'll be within our lifetimes...
Click here for the full article.
Well, today's topic is about Astronomy, the finding of a new possible planet to be exact. Scientists have found a larger than Pluto (the 9th planet from the Sun) sized planet about 3 times as far away as Pluto is at present. It also has a similar surface covered by methane ice like Pluto.
The planet has been designated 2003 UB313, cos it was actually discovered in October 2003, but it was not until January this year that Mike Brown, the Caltech astronomer who announced the discovery, realised that it had potential to be a planet. UB313 also has a 560-year orbit that is tilted 44° from the orbital plane of the Earth and most other planets. A nice little Java 3D applet can be found here that shows all the planets and their orbits with UB313.
However, the discovery of UB313 has also brought up an old debate of what should be defined as a planet. In fact some astronomers claim that even Pluto shouldn't be considered a planet at all. The International Astronomical Union has so far avoided a formal definition but UB313 may force them to create one, either to accept or reject it as a planet.
Well, I hope that UB313 will be classified a planet and that more planets will be found. That would certainly prove exciting for the astronomical arena. However, what I really wish for is the day when we can all go for a holiday on another planet, and hopefully it'll be within our lifetimes...
Astronomers have found a tenth planet, larger than Pluto and nearly three times farther from the Sun as Pluto is today.
Temporarily designated 2003 UB313, the new planet is the most distant object yet seen in the solar system, 97 times farther from the Sun than the Earth is. It also is the largest body yet found orbiting in the Kuiper belt, the group of icy bodies including Pluto which orbit beyond Neptune.
Like Pluto, 2003 UB313 is covered by methane ice, and at its present distance is chilled to just 30°C above absolute zero, says Mike Brown, the Caltech astronomer who announced the discovery on Friday. The sleep-deprived father of a three-week-old daughter, Brown said the discovery was "almost as exciting as having a new baby".
Click here for the full article.
posted by CS at 9:59 PM
2 Comments:
last time my ex colleagues were telling me that studying is good... and they said they missed school life... maybe ....
coz work-life is stressed as well? no long vacation, has some office politics, fixed time-frame... ?
gee... let's hope we'd get used to school once again... jiayouz :)
Quoted from : http://news.com.com/2061-11204_3-5814229.html?part=rss&tag=5814229&subj=news
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Hackers "out" discovery of 10th planet
Michael Brown, the scientist who discovered a 10th planet in our solar system, was apparently forced into laying his planetary cards on the table after a hacker, who had breached his servers, threatened to expose the findings, according to a report in the South African Sunday Telegraph.
Brown, a scientist at the California Institute of Technology, and his colleagues first photographed the object at the Palomar Observatory, near San Diego, two years ago, but they sat on the information until they could further analyze data available this January, according to the report. The scientists still haven't determined its exact size--it will take six more months for that.
Brown scrambled to arrange a press conference this weekend following word that his secure server with the information had been hacked.
What scientists--and now, the world--know about the planet is that it's the farthest-known object in the solar system, or about 97 times farther from the sun than Earth. The planet's temporary name is 2003 UB313. Seems like hacker code.
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~bunkmate
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