A 10th (or 12th) planet.Byline: The Register-Guard In the 1-billion-to-1 scale model of the solar system solar system, the sun and the surrounding planets, natural satellites, dwarf planets, asteroids, meteoroids, and comets that are bound by its gravity. The sun is by far the most massive part of the solar system, containing almost 99.9% of the system's total mass. centered in Eugene's Alton Baker Park Alton Baker Park is located in Eugene, Oregon, United States, near Autzen Stadium. It features duck ponds, bicycle trails, and a dog park, and directly touches the Ferry Street Bridge. , the Earth is 492 feet from the sun. Pluto is 3.7 miles away, near Belt Line Road. If the new planet-like object, the discovery of which was announced Friday, were added to the model, it would be nine miles Nine Miles is a reggae "band" started by Yoshiaki Manabe (真鍋吉明) of The Pillows. The name Nine Miles comes from the name of the town in which Bob Marley grew up in Jamaica.
The new object is the third planet-like body identified in the region beyond what used to be considered the edge of the solar system. The others have been relatively small, measuring 1,000 kilometers in diameter or less. The new one is believed to be at least as big as Pluto, and probably 50 percent larger. That would make it 3,600 kilometers in diameter. If Pluto is a planet, so is this other one. These discoveries confound the understanding of the solar system that has prevailed since Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto in 1930. As the decades passed and ever-more-powerful telescopes were built, it seemed unlikely that more planets would be found. But the advent of computer-assisted digital cameras has made searching for faint, distant objects easier than it was in Tombaugh's day, when years of painstaking examination of photographic plates was required to detect planetary motion. Knowledge of the solar system has entered a new era of expansion. The new planets, if that's what they are, lie in the Kuiper belt, a not-so-empty region beyond the orbit of Neptune. They're called Kuiper belt objects, or KBOs, and there might be quite a few of them. Astronomers are now inclined to class Pluto as a KBO Noun 1. KBO - any of many minor planets in the Kuiper belt outside the orbit of Neptune at the edge of the solar system Kuiper belt object minor planet, planetoid - any of numerous small celestial bodies that move around the sun rather than as a planet. Even farther out farther out Of or relating to an option contract with a later expiration date than a contract that is currently owned or being considered. For example, a contract with a May expiration date is farther out than a contract with a February expiration date of is the Oort cloud, a region of comets and, perhaps, still more planet-like objects. One KBO, identified in 2002, has been christened Quaoar, the name the indigenous inhabitants of the Los Angeles Basin The Los Angeles Basin is the coastal sediment-filled plain located between the peninsular and transverse ranges in southern California in the United States containing the central part of the city of Los Angeles as well as its southern and southeastern suburbs (both in Los Angeles gave to the creative force of the universe. The object unveiled to the public last week is called, for now, as 2003UB313. (The 2003 refers to the date on which the object was first photographed; its motion was detected earlier this year.) It will need a catchier name. Generations of schoolchildren schoolchildren school npl → écoliers mpl; (at secondary school) → collégiens mpl; lycéens mpl schoolchildren school have built nine-planet models of the solar system. Their assignment has just grown more complicated. And Jack Van Dusen and his son Ben, who created Eugene's scale model of the solar system, may have to scatter some pingpong ball-sized spheres around the Lane County landscape. The edge of the solar system has expanded beyond Eugene, and is headed toward Creswell, Veneta, Coburg and beyond. |
|
||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion