Xena, the warrior planet?

Should we add a new planet to our solar system, or subtract one? That’s the question surrounding the discovery last year of 2003 UB313, a ball of ice and dust nicknamed “Xena” that orbits beyond Pluto, 9 billion miles from the sun. A team of German astronomers reported Friday that Xena is 30 percent wider than Pluto. So if Pluto, which is smaller in size than the Earth’s moon, is a planet, why shouldn’t Xena be one, too? But some scientists think Pluto, which was discovered by Kansan Clyde Tombaugh, shouldn’t really be a planet, because it doesn’t “gravitationally dominate its surroundings.” I vote for adding a new planet.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee

8 Comments

  1. kansassam
    Posted February 6, 2006 at 4:54 am | Permalink

    Phillip…”I vote for adding a new planet.”

    Science has now become a democratic process? What do we vote on next… Global warming?

  2. J M Walker
    Posted February 6, 2006 at 4:58 am | Permalink

    Let’s see: Zena is a name associated with gay feminists, so if a planet is named Zena, will Phelps then condemn it as being the work of Satan? Could we send him there to picket?

  3. Joe Williams
    Posted February 6, 2006 at 5:08 am | Permalink

    I say add it as a planet. 10 is a good number. :)

  4. JWink
    Posted February 6, 2006 at 5:53 am | Permalink

    Loyal Kansans should fight to the last man and woman to keep Pluto’s identity as a planet in honor of Kansan and amateur astronomist, Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto back in the 1930’s/40’s.

  5. Jed
    Posted February 6, 2006 at 10:46 am | Permalink

    Does this argument over semantics really matter? It’s not like Xena or Pluto are going to go somewhere else in a huff if we insult them!

  6. Gittin' madder by the minute
    Posted February 6, 2006 at 1:31 pm | Permalink

    Or set fire to embassys.

  7. Jed
    Posted February 6, 2006 at 1:45 pm | Permalink

    Git,Actually, while plans are in the works, we don’t yet have diplomatic relations on an ambassadorial level with either Pluto or Xena.

  8. J R
    Posted February 6, 2006 at 10:40 pm | Permalink

    The origin of the word “planet” comes from the Greek for “wanderer” Bodies were deamed planets as they deviated from the regular consistent motion of the stars.

    Now by that definition, even the smallest asteroid would be properly called a planet. But the idea of planets has been always restricted to what we can see. For centuries there were only 6 planets. They and the Sun were assumed to circle the Earth. Later knowledge told us that Earth itself was a planet and that all the planets circled the Sun.

    The eighth and ninth planets were learned of onl in the last few hundred years. Pluto the last less than 100 years ago.

    Now comes Xena and Joe while 10 is a nice round number, there are more objects similar to Xena and larger than Pluto.

    I can’t take credit for this definition of what a planet is. But it works for me.

    A planet is an object that circles a star and has enough gravitational mass to accrete to a spherical form reminiscient of the known planets.

    Xena or whatever it is ultimately named is a planet. Pluto is a planet. And every other object we find that similarly qualifies is also a planet.