New Planetoid Discovered

Mr. Anderson · Oct 8, 2002

And its been named Quaoar - found by the Hubble Telescope about 1 Billion miles past Pluto. Very interesting because it changes Plutos claims to being a planet itself.

http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/space/10/07/ice.object/index.html

The new object is pretty damn big, easily falls within the size of some of the moons on the outer planets (Jupiter and Saturn). No doubt this will fuel the fire for the Is Pluto A Planet debate.

D

4409723 · Oct 8, 2002

Pluto is a planet, in my opinion, because it has been considered so for such a long time. This new object is around 800 miles in diameter. It has been said that it will NOT be considered a planet. It has everything going for it (Orbit and etc), except for size.

Source: BBC News

diorio · Oct 8, 2002

Yeah, I was reading about that this morning. I'll bet there are several planet sized objects in our solar system yet to be discovered. There are so many possiblilities...

4409723 · Oct 8, 2002

How you would spot something like that, I don't know!?

Mr. Anderson · Oct 8, 2002

Originally posted by diorio
Yeah, I was reading about that this morning. I'll bet there are several planet sized objects in our solar system yet to be discovered. There are so many possiblilities...

With the new Space Telescope in the works, I'm sure we'll find plenty. But as for Pluto, the article points out that if it was found today, it wouldn't be considered a planet, so the debate rages.

And we won't be visiting these things any time soon, they are so damn far away, taking over a decade to get a ship there, at our current level of propulsion systems.

D

mymemory · Oct 8, 2002

Who gave it that name?
Did they called Geroge Lucas for the idea?
How would you name some one from that planet?
Does that name has a spanish translation?

medea · Oct 8, 2002

Originally posted by W-_-W
Pluto is a planet, in my opinion, because it has been considered so for such a long time. This new object is around 800 miles in diameter. It has been said that it will NOT be considered a planet. It has everything going for it (Orbit and etc), except for size.

Source: BBC News

The world is flat in my opinion, because it has been considered so for such a long time. There are also no planets in our system capable of hosting life,no water on Mars, and no life anywhere outside of Earth.........

mac15 · Oct 8, 2002

Originally posted by medea

The world is flat in my opinion, because it has been considered so for such a long time. There are also no planets in our system capable of hosting life,no water on Mars, and no life anywhere outside of Earth.........

I like your theory

Mr. Anderson · Oct 8, 2002

Originally posted by mymemory
Who gave it that name?
Did they called Geroge Lucas for the idea?
How would you name some one from that planet?
Does that name has a spanish translation?

Quaoarians?

But there most likely won't be anyone from there - native atleast. It was named after an American Indian Creator God - and I have no idea who or why they chose it.

Spike Spiegel · Oct 8, 2002

while im not sure if pluto should be considered a planet or not, a reasonable argument for it would be its peculiar orbit that crosses over neptune's. does anyone have any idea when the space telescope will be ready?

diorio · Oct 8, 2002

Originally posted by medea

The world is flat in my opinion, because it has been considered so for such a long time. There are also no planets in our system capable of hosting life,no water on Mars, and no life anywhere outside of Earth.........

Just wondering, have you ever seen a picture of earth from outer space? It's a sphere. Just thought I'd let you know.

Also, it does suck that it takes a decade for our ships to get to the outer edge of the solar system. If only we had warp capabilites...

vniow · Oct 8, 2002

Gawd, give medea a break.
He was posting a sarcastic responce to W-_-W's post.

diorio · Oct 8, 2002

While we're doing the weird spelling, here we go: Galwd, give diorio a break, he didnn't mean nudin by it. If I wantd to be an arse, I wuld uv. By the way, this is a surcastic reply to yur post.
Sorry, we all have our moments.

Durandal7 · Oct 8, 2002

I don't really think of Pluto as a planet. There are several similar sized objects near Pluto's orbit as well as this one and they are not planets. Pluto is a chunk of rock.

diorio · Oct 8, 2002

But, a fairly large chunk of rock.

By the way, someones illigitimate son is lurking...

I gotta go, c ya n CPC4.

Mr. Anderson · Oct 9, 2002

Originally posted by weezerophile
while im not sure if pluto should be considered a planet or not, a reasonable argument for it would be its peculiar orbit that crosses over neptune's. does anyone have any idea when the space telescope will be ready?

The Pluto debate will rage on for a while, no doubt. And its mostly ice of some sort and a little more solid material mixed in.

As for the Next Generation Space Telescope looks like it is scheduled to go in 2010 - we have some time before we'll be seeing anything unfortunately.

D

Mr. Anderson · Oct 9, 2002

Originally posted by W-_-W

How you would spot something like that, I don't know!?

Since it is a planet, its moving, so you take a couple shots of it over several weeks and look at all the slides together - if somethings moved its pretty obvious since all the background stars stay constant (relatively).

Thats how comets and asteroids are found.

D

4409723 · Oct 9, 2002

That's some serious amount of sky gazing, sometimes science truly amazes me.

Mr. Anderson · Oct 9, 2002

Originally posted by W-_-W
That's some serious amount of sky gazing, sometimes science truly amazes me.

Well, its all digital today - none of the astronomers actually look through the eye piece any more. You basically just set up programs to scan the sky over a series of nights and there are even programs that do the analysis. Somewhat boring at times......

D

szark · Oct 9, 2002

Originally posted by dukestreet

Well, its all digital today - none of the astronomers actually look through the eye piece any more. You basically just set up programs to scan the sky over a series of nights and there are even programs that do the analysis. Somewhat boring at times......

D

Hmmm. If the programs are doing all of the work, then I say the new discoveries should be named after the programmers!

4409723 · Oct 9, 2002

Dukestreet, are you an astronomer, or just an aspiring scientist? ;-)

Mr. Anderson · Oct 9, 2002

I'm just a little bit intersted in the subject, not really more than a star gazer at night - don't even own a telescope, but I'll get a nice one one day. I've got Starry NightPro and that's made a huge difference if finding things when I'm out walking the dog late at night.

Doctor Q · Oct 9, 2002

The name Quaoar is simply a variation on "Doctor Q", changed to avoid having to pay me royalties.

Seriously, in order to decide if Quaoar (pronounced "QWAH-wahr" I'm told) is a planet is to start by agreeing on the defininition of "planet". If the definition is "a body in our solar system named Mercury, Venus, ..., Pluto" then any other body we find, even if it turned out to be larger than Pluto and closer than Pluto, would not be a planet.

If you start with a better definition, it should cover both the known planets in our solar system and the new ones they keep discovering in other solar systems, and it should be a definition that can be tested with evidence. Then the issue is decidable: If you have the evidence, you know the answer. If you don't have the evidence, it can't be decided yet.

So what's the definition of "planet"?

Hemingray · Oct 9, 2002

Hm, that name sounds suspiciously similar to Rimmer's fabricated "Quagaars" alien species.

And yes, Pluto is a planet.

Over Achiever · Oct 9, 2002

Wow, I can't believe this planet debate is still ongoing. It truly is a debate when looking at extrasolar planets, a field I'm interested it. What is a planet? It depends on how its formed, the mass, etc.

As for the Pluto debate, one astronomer (i dunno who) put it best: "It's pure tradition. Since Pluto has been deemed a planet, why should we go through all the pain and change all the books, saying otherwise."

New Planetoid Discovered

Moderator emeritus

Attachments

Suspended

macrumors 6502a

Suspended

Moderator emeritus

macrumors 68020

macrumors 68030

macrumors 68040

Moderator emeritus

macrumors regular

macrumors 6502a

macrumors G4

macrumors 6502a

macrumors 68040

macrumors 6502a

Moderator emeritus

Moderator emeritus

Suspended

Moderator emeritus

macrumors 68030

Suspended

Moderator emeritus

Administrator

macrumors 68030

macrumors 68000

Our Staff