MDDM Ch. 11 Stars and Planets

[Otto]

Rob:
> Someone mentioned that it was a reference to Pluto, which, though I don't
> think it *is* being referenced in this novel, does play a major part in
> _GR_ because of the time of its discovery. Otto noted that Sirius is a
> binary system. I read on the weekend that many scientists now consider
> Pluto, with its enormous moon Charon, to be a dual-planet system rather
> than a single planet. Although, the article also noted that last year the
> American Museum of Natural History dropped Pluto from the pantheon
> of the planets because it is too small, reclassifying it as one of the 300
icy
> bodies orbiting beyond Neptune in the Kuiper Belt.
>
> best
>

Planet X
Robert is right. Our knowledge is only partial (though has increased), as it
has been in those days when young people believed that some equivalent of
our worldly history is going on at other worlds of our solar system too or
that Hesperus and Phosphorus are different celestial bodies.

Otto

http://www.rog.nmm.ac.uk/leaflets/solar_system/kuiperbelt/04072001.html
New World Found Beyond Pluto
Discovery image for the new planetary body, 2001 KX76
"2001 KX76 is so exciting because it demonstrates that significant bodies
remain to be discovered in the Kuiper Belt. We have every reason to believe
that objects ranging up to planets as large or larger than Pluto are out
there waiting to be found. Until the Kuiper Belt has been thoroughly
explored, we cannot pretend to know the extent or the content of the Solar
System." - Dr Robert Millis, Director of Lowell Observatory.

http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n0105/25varuna/
Pluto's little brother
Astronomers have discovered that an object in the distant Kuiper Belt is as
large as the largest asteroids, raising new questions about the
classification of Pluto as a planet.
(with graphic comparing the Trans-Neptunian objects by their size)

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/kuiper-01d.html
Hindu God Points Way To Planet X
Observations within the last decade have revealed the existence of a large
number of bodies in orbit about the sun beyond Neptune. These bodies,
commonly known as Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs), are products of agglomeration
in the rarefied outer regions of the protoplanetary disk of the sun.
Scientific interest focuses on the primitive nature of the KBOs and on their
role as the likely source of short-period comets. Unfortunately, the KBOs
are difficult astronomical targets, so that even such basic physical
properties as the sizes and albedos remain unknown. Here we report the first
simultaneous thermal and optical measurements of a bright KBO and use them
to solve separately for the albedo and size. (20000) Varuna has equivalent
circular diameter D = 900(+125/-145) km and red geometric albedo p =
0.070(+0.030/-0.017). The surface is darker than Pluto, suggesting a
composition largely devoid of fresh ice, but higher than the canonical
albedo of 0.04 previously assumed for these bodies.
David Jewitt and Herve Aussel Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii
and Aaron Evans Dept. Physics and Astronomy, State University of New York at
Stony Brook. NATURE, 2001, May 24 issue

Paris (AFP) May 23, 2001
Varuna was detected last November by Arizona-based astronomers in the
Spacewatch Project, a scheme aimed at scouring the asteroid belts to look,
in part, for rogue rocks that could be a potential threat to Earth.

add. urls:
http://www.xware.ru/db/msg/1170563
http://www.starstuff.org/default.asp?cover=/articles/1010.asp
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/spacewatch/2000wr106.html
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/kuiper-01c.html