New Planet

handshakeit

What is the name of the new planet found in the universe,and what is the name of its moon.

Thanks.

http://www.handshakeit.com

vincentm

The new name of this "planet" is called "Xena" and it's moon is "Gabrielle" personally i think they should've stuck with the catalog name for now untill they can determine for sure it is a planet. We will know for sure after the mission to pluto is launched by Nasa in 2012, whether pluto is a planet or not.

JesseM

What do you mean? There's no official scientific criteria for a "planet", it's not a really a matter that will be settled by new evidence. I guess future research may allow scientists to tell for sure whether these bodies were formed the same way as all the other icy bodies in the Kuiper belt, although I think scientists are already pretty confident they did.

vincentm

Wel i think that scientists will be closer to be able to determine if pluto is a planet or a Kuiper belt oject or not or other bodies for that matter. ... but this has been debated for quite sometime now, so who knows how much longer we are from being able to do so.

JesseM

But what I mean is, there's no official definition that says something can't be both a planet and a Kuiper belt object...

Phobos

Note that these are just nicknames for now offered by the discovering astronomer. The IAU has not chosen official names yet.

Cosmo16

Did you see how they may have alot of planets with defining characteristics?

I.e. historical planet, KB Planet, and Terrestial planet?

If this happens, the objects such as pluto won't be a planet as we think of it, but, it will still be a "Historical Planet" since there is no way it is being removed from the minds of everyone.

ranger

Thats a relief..lol