A team of astronomers led by Stephen Tegler from the Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff were culling through pictures of the biggest dwarf planet beyond Neptune called Eris, when they came across a startling discovery. The small plutoid (as this type of planets is named) sported major changes in its surface com... |
11 November 2008
06:25 GMT |
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The dwarf planet of Haumea, the third largest in the Kuiper Belt after Pluto and Eris, was discovered a few days after the Christmas of 2004, on December 28th, by Mike Brown, a Caltech scientist. Its observed characteristics indicate that it has a violent past, marked by a massive collision with a similar object bill... |
16 October 2008
08:39 GMT |
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Astronomers still have trouble establishing once and for all the number of planets our system is comprised of. The recent conferences were of no help in this regard, as both a clear definition of the term "planet" and a reasonable delimitation line at the end of the planetary system eluded the scientists, while the c... |
23 September 2008
05:38 GMT |
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2005 FY9, a dwarf planet roughly half the size of Pluto and falling into the newly created class of objects currently known as 'plutoids', was recently named by the International Astronomical Union 'Makemake', according to the suggestion made by its discoverer Mike Brown of Caltech. 'Makemake... |
15 July 2008
02:52 GMT |
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Two years after it was stripped of its privileges as a planet, Pluto takes a new hit coming from the International Astronomical Union which has taken it out of the dwarf planet family and placed it into a rather strange new one called 'plutoids'. The IAU decided in 2006 that Pluto should be demoted from the... |
12 June 2008
02:58 GMT |
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