why kan’t zoe write?

I first received an email on the spectacular feat that Mars would be showing the planet Earth sometime mid-July. It said there that Mars would be "as large as the full moon", and would be best seen "toward the end of August." It even boldly specified it would be on August 27. That immediately got me thinking: What was that we saw 2 years ago, on August 2003? Mars was so prominent then that they claimed it to be the closest to Earth in next sumthin’-sumthin’ years.

My immediate response: Googled it. And sure enough, the last report on Mars being as big as our moon was August 27, 2003. No official reports of it for this year.

I never passed that e-mail around. But the same email kept finding its way back in my inbox, even today, August 30, when the event was supposed to have been over for 2 or 3 days!

No, even at its closest this October, Mars will remain at a safe distance of 42.9 million miles and will appear as a brilliant red "star" in the evening sky.

With all the email and the talks going round about Mars, I couldn’t believe no one even mentioned about Xena, the newly discovered 10th planet. I had the idea of posting it here some 42 minutes after Google News released the report early this month, but Mars allegedly as big as the moon will steal the show. ahehehe…. whaddyaknow.

The 10th planet, which hasn’t been officially named yet, was found by Dr. Michael Brown and colleagues of the California Institute of Technology. It is currently about 97 times farther from the sun than Earth, or 97 Astronomical Units (AU). Pluto is 40 AU from the sun.

Its temporary name is 2003 UB313, but has been fondly christened as Xena after the warrior princess of the television series because, according to Brown, "we always wanted to name something Xena."

Xena’s discovery renewed a debate over what exactly is a planet and whether Pluto should keep its status. Xena is reportedly bigger than Pluto, and if Pluto was discovered today, it would not have been classified as a planet.

So what makes a planet?

According to nature.com, The International Astronomical Union (IAU) oversees the naming of stars and asteroids. However, it has no criteria for defining planets. An IAU committee has been working on the issue for around a year and had planned to publish its results next summer. Brown’s discovery has made the debate more urgent.

Pluto and 2003 UB313, both rocky worlds that lie beyond the gas giants, fall into a controversial group. When discovered in 1930, Pluto was thought to exist alone. Astronomers now know it lies in the Kuiper Belt, a jumble of rocky and icy objects that rings the Sun. New objects are continually discovered in the belt. And several Kuiper Belt objects are a similar size to Pluto - 2003 UB313 is thought to be larger. If Pluto is a defined as a planet, then around ten other Kuiper Belt objects should presumably also qualify.

But many astronomers object to this, and argue that Kuiper Belt objects should have a separate status.

Thus, we’re looking at a possibility of Pluto not being a planet afterall.

And whether or not 2003 UB313 officially becomes planet Xena, the warrior princess among the Roman gods and goddesses in the sky, it’s yet to be seen.

Tandaan nyo yan. Lalabas yan sa Game Ka Na Ba?, Wowowee or Laban o Bawi.

~ by kabibe on August 30, 2005.