Astronomers discover distant dwarf planet beyond Neptune

[NWCorona]

Source: The Guardian



A dwarf planet half the size of Britain has been found tumbling through space in the most distant reaches of the solar system.

The giant ball of rock and ice lies nine billion kilometres away on an orbit that swings far beyond the realm of Neptune, the most remote of the fully-fledged planets in our cosmic vicinity.

Astronomers first noticed the new world when it appeared as a bright spot moving slowly across a sequence of images taken in September 2015 by a telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii for the Outer Solar System Origins Survey (OSSOS).

“It was really remarkable to see how bright this object was,” said Michele Bannister, an astronomer on the team at the University of Victoria, Canada. “It’s far brighter than the objects we normally find.”

Read more: Astronomers discover distant dwarf planet beyond Neptune

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If only Sitchin would have lived a few more years lol

[Orrex]

1. The dwarf planet the size of Britain promptly voted to leave the EU.

Very cool news!

[PatSeg]

7. Ha, ha!

[Akicita]

2. Neat. Thanks for posting.

[FSogol]

3. Isn't the proper term "Little Planet"?

Kidding aside, very cool. Thanks for posting.

[longship]

4. And if only the fringe Hawaiians would allow the building of the TMT.

There is no excuse for that.

Mauna Kea is "sacred" to astronomers. It is, by far, the best place in the Northern Hemisphere for visual astronomy.

Native Hawaiians settled on those volcanic islands, traveling across many miles of Pacific Ocean. How did they accomplish such a thing? Because they knew the stars. They navigated by the sun and the other stars.

But their descendants want the science of their ancestors to be buried in a cloud of volcano gods.

Build the TMT. As Pele would undoubtedly want.

[uawchild]

8. Celestial navigation, tidal currents and volcanoes

That's what I always heard they used. Navigators would lie in the hulls of their ocean going canoes and feel for distinctive wave patterns in certain locations. Unbelievable, huh?

And also the voyages weren't usually shots in the dark to find new islands, they would spot volcanic eruptions or their effects, I guess sky coloration, and head for those. Again, amazing stuff.

And please, actual scientists, don't slam me to hard, this is just stuff I semi-remember reading in old highlights kid magazines at summer camp. lol

[longship]

11. Well put. nt

[Bernardo de La Paz]

9. Thoughtful, well-reasoned post. . . nt

[uawchild]

10. The controversy

Hawaii's Telescope Controversy Is the Latest in a Long History of Land-Ownership Battles

The current standoff between Native Hawaiian protesters and proponents of the planned Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) can take some lessons from similar disputes in the past

Last week Hawaii’s Supreme Court rescinded the construction permit for the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), an estimated $1.4-billion observatory planned for Mauna Kea, the dormant volcano whose red dusted slopes rise 4,205 meters above the Pacific Ocean on the island of Hawaii. The court’s decision is the most recent battle wound in a years-long contest between astronomers and native Hawaiians as well as environmentalists who oppose the construction because of the sanctity of the mountain. The controversy is nothing new: Mauna Kea is the latest in a long line of mountaintops that have become combat zones between scientists and activists. These previous skirmishes share some illuminating similarities with the latest situation, revealing just how fraught astronomy can be when it clashes with local communities.

The very qualities that make many sites valuable to science—remote locations far from city lights, summits soaring above a good chunk of the atmosphere and clear views that sweep from horizon to horizon—often also draw native worshippers who value mountains as spiritual homes of the gods as well as environmentalists aiming to protect the vulnerable ecosystems of pristine regions.
In the late 1980s, for example, Mount Graham, in Arizona, saw a bitter fight between astronomers, who wanted to build three telescopes—the Heinrich Hertz Submillimeter Telescope, the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope and The Large Binocular Telescope (LBT)—and the San Carlos Apache Tribe, who perform religious ceremonies on the mountain. Environmental activists were also worried about the fate of the American red squirrel, which was on the verge of extinction. Ultimately the astronomy project—and the squirrel, whose fate was unaffected by the telescope—prevailed. The first two telescopes (which were relatively small in size and already fully funded at the time of the protests) sped through construction. The LBT, on the other hand, which required a larger plot of land and obscured the sacred peaks, faced 40 lawsuits, eight of which ended up before a federal appeals court. Ultimately an act of the U.S. Congress allowed it to move forward several years late.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hawaii-s-telescope-controversy-is-the-latest-in-a-long-history-of-land-ownership-battles/

[longship]

12. Well, Mauna Kea is one of the largest mountains on Earth.

There is a whole lot of summit up there. And it is above 13,000 ft, so few are going to be hiking up there as atmospheric pressure is quite low.

The TMT is to built on the already set aside astronomical reserve. Set aside in the 1960's, I might add.

It is not only an astronomical reserve, but an environmental preserve. Nothing is built there without considering environmental impact. And get this straight, astronomers are scientists who are acutely aware of and sensitive to such things.

The argument about volcano gods is a non-starter. The native Hawaiians navigated across the Pacific to settle those islands using ocean currents and the stars. THE STARS! So claiming that a telescope being built there is somehow against their gods is a disingenuous fabrication. They just don't want to share the rather huge summit with science even if their ancestors might have embraced the study of the stars.

Finally, although the TMT will be a rather large structure, it is dwarfed by the size of the summit. None of the telescopes within the astronomy preserve are visible until one gets close to the summit. And for a large part of the summit they remain invisible. It is, after all, amongst the largest mountains on the planet.

There are two places on the planet that are ideal for visual astronomy: the Atacama desert in the high Andes, and the Mauna Kea summit. One is in the Southern Hemisphere and one in the Northern Hemisphere. The thing is, in order to cover the whole sky, one needs a telescope in both hemispheres. Such are the vagaries of Earth's rotational axis.

The TMT poses no threat to anybody except narrow minded people who have objections to science, or have some political agenda totally unrelated to science. Either way, the telescope, or science, is not to blame.

Build the TMT!

[uawchild]

13. thanks for a very informative post n/t

[longship]

14. You are welcome. nt

[Chrisdutch]

5. Something is out there

This is exciting news and a tribute to science and the power of inquiry and research. I'd be worried, however, that the Planet X types are going to jump all over this and say the damned thing is going to hit on August 16th or something like that.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. Link:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jul/11/astronomers-discover-distant-dwarf-planet-beyond-neptune-2015-rr245

It may or may not be a true 'dwarf planet'; Wikipedia says " unnamed trans-Neptunian objects with an absolute magnitude brighter than +1 (and hence a diameter of ?838 km assuming a geometric albedo of ?1)[14] are to be named under the assumption that they are dwarf planets". But 2015 RR245 is "roughly 700 kilometers in size". That size puts it in the 'highly likely' category only. I think it will need to be observed more to get an idea is it fits the full 'dwarf planet' description.