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Jul 29

We have a tenth planet...

space, astrophysics, berkeley Add comments

Astronomers have discovered a tenth planet, Lila (see note on name below)... modulo the debate about what is considered a planet; for which I point you to Gibor Basri's great essay: Defining "Planet".

UPDATE [2005-07-30 07:54:47]: This NYT story, "Planet or Not, Pluto Now Has Far-Out Rival", says that the astronomers are informally calling this planet, Xena! (Although Lila is the name they formally submitted to the IAU)

UPDATE [2005-07-31 09:40:31]: The Caltech website has been updated to include a note that the name Lila is not necessarily the name that they submitted to the IAU.

1 comment

1. § Meresa said on : 08/02/05 @ 10:54
   I think the idea of the discoverer naming the planet ofter his daughter is inappropriate, prideful, and selfish in the extreme (not to mention nepotistic). This is a celestial body whose name will eventially end up in school textbooks, and will endure for ages.
   
   Planets (both major and minor) have so far been named for mythological characters, as they have been since antiquity. There are plenty of minor deity names remaining in the Greek and other panthea to provide more appropriate names for these celestial bodies.
   
   Niven and Clarke had a good name for the then hypothetical object in their fiction stories: Persephone.
   I second that.

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