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- theradical, on 10/12/2007, -0/+36Xena: Warrior Planet.
- Flanker, on 10/12/2007, -1/+22What's annoying about this is that Xena is actually *larger* than Pluto. Refusing to classify it as a planet would be sort of like calling Iceland a continent, but saying Australia wasn't one.
- Wrathernaut, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16So why is it that we get those beautiful pictures of distant galaxies with Hubble, but something (sorta) within our solar system looks like it came off an Atari 2600?
- mushoo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13Poor Hubble is farsighted!
- fatb0b, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13I know this is not exactly breaking news, but this is the official NASA release confirming what others have theorized. Figured it was worth submitting.
- Otto, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11"Could they have picked a more stupid name for a potential 10th planet?"
Rupert. - martinjester, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10what about Sedna? I thought it was th 10th planet
- hybrid8, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12how many tenth planets can we find?
- chimona, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13Xena is not a planet. It's a kuyper belt object. The nine planets are like the seven continents; There's no scientific definition that makes them distinct.
- jerwood, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Pluto isn't a planet either! It's a KBO as well.
- fantasticFlan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Dunno, how many eighth wonders of the world are there?
- ProfessorRiffs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Funny, I've never had the urge to whipped & mounted by a Kuiper Belt object......until now, for some reason........
- fwonkas, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Because it's easier to see billions of stars clustered together than it is to see a ball of ice.
- Toshibi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I think it has a moon, named Gabrielle....
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Why cant it be a planet? Just because it doesnt fit with the simplistic "9 bodies that go around the sun in neat little circles" image that we have had for the past 80 years, does not mean that our solar system could not be larger and more diverse. Compaired to other solar systems, our was way too normal and was due for a shakeup like this.
- Wubbie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Jerwood is right, it's a KBO... But they consider it a planet because that's what it was first released as... They don't wanna say they ***** up.
Xena is also a KBO - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Looks like blocks.
- fatb0b, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Yeah you're right sorry about that. I should have left the quotes on '10th planet' like they did.
- motionblur, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Essentially it's because Hubble is farsighted. Hubble is designed to take images from a great distance and cannot get high resolution images of close objects. Relatively speaking, Pluto is a close object for the HST.
More info here: http://hubble.nasa.gov/overview/faq.php#moon - ThinkBox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5The Tardis found it before hubble
- Durrok, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6It is a cold ball of lifeless rock w/o an atmosphere of any kind. Doesn't really matter if it is called a planet or not to me. Any large rocks floating in orbit to our sun are technically planets but when your surface temp is around 3 kelvin does it really matter?
- Flankk, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Why say sorry when you can edit it?
If it's the size of Pluto and it orbits around the sun, it's a planet in my books. - tidu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Thanks! Never saw one of those shining balls in the sky before.
- kingofthegreens, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5thats actually someone's cream donut they spilled on the monitor...
- mistshadow2k4, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I agree, this is kind of stupid. It's basically a matter of astronomers being anal-retentive. Either only the first eight "planet-like" objects orbiting the sun are planets, or there may well be a whole lot more planets orbiting the sun than the astronomers want there to be. It would seem that the universe doesn't care how the astronomers want it to be, doesn't it? So any planet-like objects past the first eight aren't actual planets just because they say so (even though they pretty much are).
- Fly1m1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4The picture of the planet is at http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/archive/releases/2006/16/image/b
- 256byteram, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4You kinda need to be a Douglas Adams fan to appreciate Rupert :)
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Xena? What in the HELL.
They shoulda named it something badass, like Robocop. - starexplorer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4It's time to end this nonsense:
"Demote Pluto and Kill Xena"
http://www.livescience.com/blogs/2006/04/11/demote-pluto-and-kill-xena/ - MightyGiant, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Your name fits you well.
- InvisibleMan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3InvisibleMan's Guide to Classifying Planets
1) The object must orbit a Star.
(In our solar system that would be Sol, our sun)
2) The object must be spherical in shape.
(An important yet vague clarification, if an object possess a enough mass to produce enough gravity to mold itself into a round shape then its probably massive enough. Because even the earth is not a perfect sphere, the rule is if your round you pass. Of course some non-planets will meet this requirement, that's why this is only number 2)
3) The object must be larger than its satellites (also known as its moons) if it has any.
(Really just a formality since the chances are that if it passed number 1 it would pass number 3)
4) The object must not have any 'tail' or any other continual increase or decrease in mass. (The exception to this is impacts from other space objects such as meteorites)
5) The object must have a core.
(This one I think should be on the list but might kick Pluto out of the list. Even gas planets have cores at their center. Having a core for a solid planet means a geothermal system [of course geo means earth but you get the idea])
If the object passes all these test then its a planet in my book. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Scientologists the world over are peed off that they didn't call it Xenu instead!
- TrevorBradley, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I'm assuming this is UB313? Xena is not an official name for this object by any means. It likely will receive a different name.
I know UB313 isn't catchy, but all we need is some astronomer naming his newly found giant Kuiper Belt object "Dildo" to get all over the news. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3You mean pixelation? They could probably zoom out like in your Orion Nebula sample, but then all you'd see is a tiny white dot on a black background, which doesn't interest anyone (you can do it yourself if you want to see). If you zoomed in on the Orion Nebula picture you'd get pixelation too (and scientists studying the picture probably do operate at that level), but when the purpose is to tell people "look at this pretty picture," you don't do that.
- krypton24, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5why does it seem like they have found like three 10th planets?
- fatb0b, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Yes you are right. Xena is just the nickname they gave it (god knows why).
From the full story... "Xena is officially catalogued as 2003 UB313." - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4They should just give it a name already. It *is* kind of cute, though, that they've nicknamed its moon "Gabrielle."
- Lynxpro, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3There are no other "solar systems". Our star system is called the "solar system" because the name of the sun/star is Sol. There are other "star systems".
- aquax, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@lilazndrumrboy
Greenland is only thought of as "large" because most maps you see are Mercator Projections, which distort areas further from the equator to conform a sphere shape to a rectangle. Gall-Peters Projection maps are a different form of an earth map, that shows Greenland more correctly, but tends to distort other areas.
Look on a globe, the only really accurate earth map -- Greenland is pretty small. - Cojawfee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I read Discover Magazine too.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Hold up, there's a tenth planet now, that's bigger than Pluto? I guess that no matter where you stand on whether Pluto and Xena are even planets, there aren't nine (known) planets any more, it's either eight or 10. This is rather monumental.
What's with naming planets after TV-show characters though? That's just retarded. I can just imagine people in 1,000 years wondering what the hell is a Xena or a Gabrielle. That's just this side of naming the planet and moon after yourself. - WayneMan, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Slightly larger than Pluto?
So...is it bigger than Uranus? *snicker* - munkey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Will this "planet" align up with the others on 12/21/12???
- fantasticFlan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Well, Xena was a spinoff of a show initially based on Greek mythology, that's close enough. (plus Planet X -> Planet Xena)
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2i'm not sure, but i think it's an issue of being able to focus on something as close as an object in our solar system. i think hubble was specifically designed to observe objects that were way the F out in space. i could be wrong though.
- wjglenn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2According to this page, Xena is actually a code name still used and not the official name of the planet (which will be decided by committee). Other code names for it were Santa, Easterbunny, and Flying Dutchman. Interesting read, though.
http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/planetlila/ - adolfojp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yes. Uranus.
- vtwin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Mon Vieux Tu M'as Jeté Sur Une Nouvelle Planete Xenophobe!
- Tyrel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The things that Hubble takes photos of far away are much much much much much larger than objects in the Kuiper belt... even if they are really far away (which makes them look smaller), the object imaged here is just very very very small.
- mexter, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Depends on the composition of Xena, but I'd say The Moon in a heartbeat. Xena is likely very similar to a comet, and our moon eats those for breakfast.
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