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Thread: Astronomers claim discovery of 10th Planet in the Solar System. "Sedna"

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    Default Astronomers claim discovery of 10th Planet in the Solar System. "Sedna"

    WOW!


    Astronomers from Caltech, Gemini Observatory, and Yale University announced the discovery of the coldest, most distant object known to orbit the sun. The object was found at a distance 90 times greater than that from the sun to the earth — about 3 times further than Pluto, the most distant known planet.

    Because of its temperatures, the team who discovered it has named the object 'Sedna', after the Inuit goddess of the sea from whom all sea creatures were created.





    This is pretty cool.
    Last edited by Madcap; 07-30-2005 at 06:26 PM.

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    Default Re: Astronomers claim discovery of 10th Planet in the Solar System. "Sedna"

    very cool!


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    Default Re: Astronomers claim discovery of 10th Planet in the Solar System. "Sedna"


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    Default Re: Astronomers claim discovery of 10th Planet in the Solar System. "Sedna"

    You freaking rock, Mad.. I love when you post this stuff.


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    Default Re: Astronomers claim discovery of 10th Planet in the Solar System. "Sedna"

    Check this (From the paper describing the discovery)

    Any comments by myself are in red...


    Pre-discovery images from 2001, 2002, and 2003 have allowed us to redefine the orbit sufficiently to conclude that 2003 VB12 (Sedna) is on a highly eccentric orbit which permanently resides well beyond the Kuiper Belt (a large belt of icy rocks similar to the better known asteroid belt but located just beyond the orbit of Neptune) with a semimajor axis of 480+40 AU (1 AU = 93 million miles, the distance from the Earth to the sun, this means that the CLOSEST Sedna gets to the sun is around 3,720,000,000 miles) and a perihelion of 76+4AU (Meaning, at it's furthest point in it's orbit it's roughly 7,068,000,000 miles away from the sun). Such an orbit is unexpected in our current understanding of the Solar System, but could be the result of scattering by a yet-to-be-discovered planet (Meaning there could be something very big out there that we don't know about yet), perturbation by an anomalously close stellar encounter (yikes! I like the stars safely FAR away, thank you very much), or formation of the solar system within a cluster of stars (Very cool).
    Last edited by Madcap; 07-30-2005 at 09:06 PM.

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    Default Re: Astronomers claim discovery of 10th Planet in the Solar System. "Sedna"

    It is big, but it is not a planet yet.

    They need to compile more data before they can comfirm it is a "Planet"

    Sooo cool tho.
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    Default Re: Astronomers claim discovery of 10th Planet in the Solar System. "Sedna"

    Quote Originally Posted by Mastridonicus
    It is big, but it is not a planet yet.

    They need to compile more data before they can comfirm it is a "Planet"

    Sooo cool tho.
    That depends. If Pluto is classified as a planet, then Sedna must also be (Some actually DON'T classify Pluto as a planet). The two bodies are just alike.

    It also took a few years for Pluto to be given official Planetary statis after it's discovery in 1931. This is standard.

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    Default Re: Astronomers claim discovery of 10th Planet in the Solar System. "Sedna"

    One of my science professors flat out refused to acknowledge Pluto as a planet. He said it was a "fucking ball of ice, your mom would make a better planet". Oh, how I loved that guy. Anyway...this is cool though. On my way to work last night I heard a blurb about this but they never mentioned "Sedna". I am fairly sure they called it some alpha-numeric thingee, ie SU143R5....or something like that.
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    Default Re: Astronomers claim discovery of 10th Planet in the Solar System. "Sedna"

    I'm always amazed at how rapidly the technology moves on for discovering ever smaller and ever fainter stellar objects.

    I'd be kind of interested to know if the ability to dicover new planets, (either intra or extra solar), is allowing any firming up of the Drake equation. OK, we just don't have data for sonme of the terms, but we surely must be more accurate on the number of possible earth like planets than we were a decade ago.

    Phil.

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    Default Re: Astronomers claim discovery of 10th Planet in the Solar System. "Sedna"

    Quote Originally Posted by Phil-W
    I'd be kind of interested to know if the ability to dicover new planets, (either intra or extra solar), is allowing any firming up of the Drake equation. OK, we just don't have data for sonme of the terms, but we surely must be more accurate on the number of possible earth like planets than we were a decade ago.
    Obviously, the first parts of it are a lot more clear. But a lot of the drake equasion is pretty much unreachable. As soon as it starts talking about life it's out of our reach at the moment.

    For anyone who doesn't know what we are talking about, The Drake Equation was developed by Frank Drake in the early 60's as a way to focus on the stuff that can determine how many intelligent, communicating civilizations there are in our galaxy (not counting us, i suppose). The Drake Equation is:
    N = N* fp ne fl fi fc fL

    The equation can really be looked at as a number of questions:



    N* represents the number of stars in the Milky Way Galaxy
    Question: How many stars are in the Milky Way Galaxy? Answer: Current estimates are 100 billion.
    fp is the fraction of stars that have planets around them
    Question: What percentage of stars have planetary systems? Answer: Current estimates range from 20% to 50%.
    ne is the number of planets per star that are capable of sustaining life
    Question: For each star that does have a planetary system, how many planets are capable of sustaining life? Answer: Current estimates range from 1 to 5.
    fl is the fraction of planets in ne where life evolves
    Question: On what percentage of the planets that are capable of sustaining life does life actually evolve? Answer: Current estimates range from 100% (where life can evolve it will) down to close to 0%.
    fi is the fraction of fl where intelligent life evolves
    Question: On the planets where life does evolve, what percentage evolves intelligent life? Answer: Estimates range from 100% (intelligence is such a survival advantage that it will certainly evolve) down to near 0%.
    fc is the fraction of fi that communicate
    Question: What percentage of intelligent races have the means and the desire to communicate? Answer: Estimates range from 10% to 20% (Remember, there was a looooong time when humans weren't communicating with anything other than smoke signals).
    fL is fraction of the planet's life during which the communicating civilizations live
    Question: For each civilization that does communicate, for what fraction of the planet's life does the civilization survive? Answer: This is the toughest of the questions. If we take Earth as an example, the expected lifetime of our Sun and the Earth is roughly 10 billion years. So far we've been communicating with radio waves for less than 100 years. How long will our civilization survive? Will we destroy ourselves in a few years like some predict or will we overcome our problems and survive for millennia? If we were destroyed tomorrow the answer to this question would be 1/100,000,000th. If we survive for 10,000 years the answer will be 1/1,000,000th.
    When all of these variables are multiplied together when come up with:
    N, the number of communicating civilizations in the galaxy.

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    Default Re: Astronomers claim discovery of 10th Planet in the Solar System. "Sedna"

    I think Proserpine would be a better name for the new "planet". Prosperpine being the Goddess of the Underworld and one Pluto sent and kept there. It is also part of the Roman mythology that the rest of the planets are named after (except ours). Sedna seems like PC crap.

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    Default Re: Astronomers claim discovery of 10th Planet in the Solar System. "Sedna"

    Nuh uh! They just saw my ass on the horizon! I want discovery rights!
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    Default Re: Astronomers claim discovery of 10th Planet in the Solar System. "Sedna"

    Quote Originally Posted by Pumpkin Pie
    I think Proserpine would be a better name for the new "planet". Prosperpine being the Goddess of the Underworld and one Pluto sent and kept there. It is also part of the Roman mythology that the rest of the planets are named after (except ours). Sedna seems like PC crap.


    Proserpine threw me. I'm used to calling her Persephone.

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    Default Re: Astronomers claim discovery of 10th Planet in the Solar System. "Sedna"

    http://www.studyworksonline.com/cda/...AR920,00.shtml

    Sedna is 2/3's the size of Pluto. If we're going to call Sedna a planet, then Pluto's going to have to be.

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    Default Re: Astronomers claim discovery of 10th Planet in the Solar System. "Sedna"

    Sedna? What kind of name is that? They should have sold the naming rights to some big corporation like they do with all the new arenas. Get Pepsi and Coca-Cola in a bidding war to have a planet named after them. They could make a fortune.
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    Default Re: Astronomers claim discovery of 10th Planet in the Solar System. "Sedna"

    Link on Sedna. If interested, click on link

    http://www.hvgb.net/~sedna/homepage.html

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    Default Re: Astronomers claim discovery of 10th Planet in the Solar System. "Sedna"

    Which genius named this thing "Sedna?" We should stick with the Roman God series of planets. I think even Pluto, which was discovered in ther 1930's is in the Roman God naming series. I'm not even Italian, but let's give the solar system some class shall we?

    If this was a US government employee or facility that found the thing, lets get the Republican Senate to pass a resolution declaring the new planet a Roman name on a unilateral basis. Stop this debacle before it hits the UN!

    Our spin slogan can be, "If it was good enough for Western Civilization then, it's good enough for the world now!" (Insert alternative PR/marketing slogans here.)

    Alot of the good remaining Roman God series names were given away to moons of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. As a political compromise you could put in the Greek names which aren't being used.

    If we are truly out of Roman names, I suggest an American name like Hamilton. A brilliant guy, who did alot for the bond market, was always on the edge of power, and got shot
    dead by the traitor Aaron Burr. (Was also the effective head of George Washingtons
    special forces unit.)

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    Default Re: Astronomers claim discovery of 10th Planet in the Solar System. "Sedna"

    Quote Originally Posted by Niceguy
    Which genius named this thing "Sedna?"
    It's just PC crap.

    We should stick with the Roman God series of planets.
    They will.

    I think even Pluto, which was discovered in ther 1930's is in the Roman God naming series.
    Yes, Pluto is a Roman god.

    http://www.gwydir.demon.co.uk/jo/roman/pluto.htm

    If we are truly out of Roman names...
    There's no need to be concerned about that.

    Here are the major Roman gods: http://www.gwydir.demon.co.uk/jo/roman/index.htm

    And then there are numerous of lesser gods in the Roman mythology.
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    Default Re: Astronomers claim discovery of 10th Planet in the Solar System. "Sedna"

    They've actually started naming moons after Shakespearean characters...

    Uranus's moons are named: Miranda, Ariel, Umbriel, Titania, Oberon, Cordelia, Ophelia, Bianca, Cressida, Desdemona, Juliet, Portia, Rosalind, Belinda, Puck, Caliban, Stephano, Sycorax, Prospero, Setebos, and Trinculo. So the Roman thing isn't gospel. In fact, the names given to the moons of Jupiter and Saturn kind of eat up a LOT of the mythological names... And between the two Gas Giants, that's a HELL of a lot of moons.

    As of May, 2005 the number of moons in the Solar System are...

    Number of Moons per planet: Mercury: 0 Venus: 0 Earth: 1 Mars: 2 Jupiter: 63(!!) Saturn: 50 Uranus: 27 (Named after the Bard's characters) Neptune: 13 (Named after water gods) Pluto:1

    This isn't taking into account named Asteroids like Ceres.

    When the Astronomical society accepts Sedna as a planet, and they HAVE to if they accept Pluto as a Planet, the name might be changed.

    Honestly, artic deity names for inner and outer Oort cloud objects might be fitting. These things are the next thing to interstellar objects we know about. The outer Oort cloud extends out for a light year! That's pretty frigid.

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    Default Re: Astronomers claim discovery of 10th Planet in the Solar System. "Sedna"

    I'm willing to use my name! There's nothing like a large mass floating in space to make you feel special...

    This is pretty exciting. When you learn about this stuff in school you don't realize that more discoveries can be made...



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    Default Re: Astronomers claim discovery of 10th Planet in the Solar System. "Sedna"

    As to a PC choice of name, what else do you expect from a profession entirely dependent on gov't funding and/or rich white liberal donations and grants.

    As to calling this object a 'planet' , if 'junk' science is put aside now that the discoverer of the 'planet' pluto is dead (nobody in the scientific community had the heart to do it while he was still alive), Pluto and this new discovery would both be correctly classified as KBO's (Kuyper Belt Objects) not planets.

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    Default Re: Astronomers claim discovery of 10th Planet in the Solar System. "Sedna"

    while all other "planets" follow a fairly similar orbital plane, this one was 45 degrees off axis........

    hmmmmmmm... and all this time we've been looking at distant stars for planets when there very well may be more in our own neighborhood.

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    Default Re: Astronomers claim discovery of 10th Planet in the Solar System. "Sedna"

    Quote Originally Posted by Melonie
    As to calling this object a 'planet' , if 'junk' science is put aside now that the discoverer of the 'planet' pluto is dead (nobody in the scientific community had the heart to do it while he was still alive), Pluto and this new discovery would both be correctly classified as KBO's (Kuyper Belt Objects) not planets.
    Sedna is nowhere near the Kuiper belt. Inner Oort cloud, maybe, but hardly the Kuiper belt. Sedna is a few billion miles past the Kuiper.


    Here's some info in the difference

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    Default Re: Astronomers claim discovery of 10th Planet in the Solar System. "Sedna"

    oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooOOoOoOo OO....


    Just realized that was my 2000th post!


    ... how boring, lol

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    Default Re: Astronomers claim discovery of 10th Planet in the Solar System. "Sedna"

    All the planets in our Solar System exert some sort of gravitational effect on the planets closest to them. Some of the planets were found via the naked eye observations and by contemporary rudimentary telescopes. The farther out orbital bodies were discovered by the unique gravitational reactions the "farthest" known planet made when observed and their orbits were brone in to mathmatical equations (thanks, Johannes Kepler). If this new solar body was big enough to be a "planet", then it's gravitational influence would already have been observed on Pluto, Uranus and Neptune etc.

    Using this extrapolation, if this were a body that exerted gravitational influence akin to a Planet, its "discovery" shouldnt be a surprise, and would have been theorized years ago. My guess, as unscientific and off the cuff as it is (and you can take it as such), is that it could be a large asteroid or small moon that has been ensared by the Sun (remember that Saturn's moon Titan is bigger then the Earth, and I think a few of Jupiters moons are too). Large body yes, Planet no.

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