Mooquackwooftweetmeow
Concatenating zoölogical onomatopœia since 1999
About Mooquackwooftweetmeow
Hi! This is Mooquackwooftweetmeow, a collection of stuff by Greg K Nicholson.
Entries labelled ‘the Solar System’
- Planet X-4: Pluto is a Planet; so is Eris; so is Sedna; and so are Charon, the Moon, Ceres, Titan and Quaoar Hang on – I thought you said...?
- Planet X-3: Pluto Still Isn't a Planet, Neither Are 2003 UB313 and 2003 EL61
They finally found it - again - another tenth planet, this time unnamed but temporarily designated 2003 UB313. It was also announced yesterday that 2003 EL61 may be roughly 70% Pluto's size.
- Planet X-2
The press release is now online, as is Mike Brown's Sedna page, at http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/Media/releases/ssc2004-05/ and http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/sedna/ respectively. Right then - Sedna isn't a planet - it's not even a Kuiper Belt Object. According to Mike Brown, the Kuiper Belt has a fairly sharp edge at 50AU (1 Astronomical Unit is the distance from Earth to the Sun, 150 Gm); Sedna comes no closer than 70AU. The appropriate term for Sedna is Inner Oort Cloud Object (and I'd like to take this opportunity to lay claim to the acronym IOCO).
- Planet X
Well, they finally found it, Planet X, a.k.a. Sedna. Of course, if it is decided that it is actually a planet, the name will have to be changed to a Roman god. Sedna is the Inuit goddess of the ocean, and the Roman god of the ocean - Neptune - is already taken.
- Pluto Isn't a Planet
Officially, Pluto is a planet. In reality, it's a member of numerous Kuiper Belt objects which orbit the Sun beyond Neptune. When it was found, 74 years ago, Clyde Tombaugh was searching for a planet and so assumed what he had found was one.
About these entries
Questions? Comments? Plaudits? Microblog at identi.ca/gregknicholson, or with the tag #thesolarsystem; or email me at greg@gkn.me.uk.