Eris
Author: Tom
Comments(12)
Comments(12)
Hey UB313 has a name and it is Eris. The moon of Eris is Dysnomia. Eris is a dwarf planet and has been officially named by the IAU, Xena didn’t stick.
Eris is the Greek goddess of discord, and Dysnomia is her daughter. Dysnomia is the daimon of lawlessness.
Image Credit: Keck Observatory
The Minor Planet Center (will it be renamed the Dwarf Planet Center?, or Minor Dwarf Planet Center?, …) has issued a number to Eris – 136199 Eris, to go along it’s other popular names, Xena, and 2003 UB313. No word on if Gabriel, i mean Dysnomia has a number.
There is also 136106 2003 EL61, and 136472 2005 FY9, to go with 50000 Quaoar.
Finally: 134340 Pluto. No word on Charon’s designation.
IMO, all the ‘Planets’ need a number, because, well, all the planets are in orbital gravitational resonance, and Jupiter is the gravitational bully (Pluto isn’t a planet because Neptune is it’s bully). Jupiter needs one, because there are 100,000 Trojans that it hasn’t ‘cleared out’ of it’s orbit.
There are no extrasolar planets either. Not one of them orbits the Sun.
By the new definition, we don’t have any planets.
One news story says that Astrologers are still happy. Eris is fine with them. However, i have it on good authority that Sedna, though a unique name, is a Goddess representing the same thing as some other astronomical object.
No word on how Astrologers would feel about using Hershel’s original name for Uranus – George.
I was hoping for 123456 Earth. That would be equivalent to 0123456 Earth, right?
Or perhaps this, in order of discovery:
0 Earth
-1 Sun
-2 Moon
-3 Venus
-4 Jupiter
-5 Mars
-6 Saturn
-7 Mercury
That way, negative numbers coorespond to the classical planets, more or less in order of discovery. And, this could lead to:
-8 George
-9 Neptune
HAHAHAHAHA and yep, I almost forgot about George. Funny you should mention “By the new definition, we don’t have any planets”, because there is that school of thought out there too.
Alas, it appears we have become such a “kinder gentler society” we will happily cast asunder any sense of traditional values to the extreme that even no piece of rock or ice feels any less of itself than it does of it’s neighbor.
Oh, and I forgot; wouldn’t Charon have to be 134341 Pluto? After all it is a minor binary dwarf planet body thing.
Somebody’s got their tongue pretty far into their cheek ;>)… That would be Stephan. Some salient points there though. I’ll bet you’re a ton of fun around the house. I use those same type of arguments to get out of chores.
Thanks for the new perspective.
I believe I read that Charon, Hydra and Nix have the same designation as Pluto, followed by Roman numerals I, II and III, respectively.
In line with making planets feel good about themselves… I swear, I actually saw this someplace. It’s been standard for many, many years to refer to planets closer to the Sun than the Earth as inferior planets, and planets further out from Earth as superior planets. Strictly a matter of location, not a value judgement as to their worth. But I actually saw some popular-level article on astronomy put the words superior and inferior in this context in quotation marks — referring to the “inferior” planets of Venus and Mars and the “superior” planets of Mars, Jupiter, et al. As though the writer either couldn’t quite believe those were actual, seriously used terms, or thought they were un-PC in some way. As for me, I’ll go on using the words in the standard manner, but I do promise to reconsider if I get a letter from a Mercurian complaining about it.
Pluto and Eris will always be planets to me, IAU notwithstanding!
I love to read the comments and views of others. Thats what makes us unique
I’m just glad that the name Xena was dropped. I don’t know if I would want to live in the same Solar System with a (dwarf) planet(oid) named after a fictional TV character… even if Lucy Lawless was kind of hot at the time.
Xena was never intended as an official name. But Mike Brown’s team doesn’t have time to refer to the object of study as 2003 UB313 all day long. I might have gone for Goofy. I’d have been stuck for a moon name, though.
yeah,so do they think there is a planet beyond pluto or is it just a dwarf planet too???anyway,whats the big deal about this pluto thing,i mean who cares if its a dwarf planet or not?????
Pluto has been rightly designated. If you look at the distribution of solar system bodies you will see that Pluto fits the distribution size of asteroids, albeit large ones. Pluto is also much smaller than “planets”.
The big deal comes from years of learning that Pluto was a planet. Denial