14 DAY TRIAL // Previously referred to as "Xena" or as 2003 UB313, the largest known body in the Kuiper Belt got baptized by the International Astronomical Union on Wednesday. The name is Eris, after the Greek goddess of strife.
The most famous story involving Eris is her initiating the Trojan War. She made a golden apple, called the Apple of Discord, inscribed "For the most beautiful one". Hera, Athena and Aphrodite started quarrelling about who is the intended recipient and eventually asked Paris, the prince of Troy, to settle the dispute. He chose Aphrodite because she promised to give him the most beautiful woman in the world, Princess Helen. Unfortunately, Helen happened to be married with Menelaus of Sparta who was not exactly happy with the kidnapping of his wife and went to war against Troy to get her back.
Eris' satellite was named Dysnomia. In the Greek mythology, she was Eris' daughter and the spirit of lawlessness.
Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology - who discovered the planet - said the names Eris and Dysnomia were "too perfect to resist" because the finding of the planet has eventually led to the demotion of Pluto.
Eris is larger than Pluto, measuring about 110 kilometers (70 miles), and it is the farthest known object in the solar system at 14 billion kilometers (9 billion miles) away from the Sun. It doesn't always remain so distant - as it is shown in the image below.
Although very distant, it is the third brightest object located in the Kuiper Belt - the disk of icy debris beyond the orbit of Neptune.
