Xena officially named Eris (as of 13 Sept)

[marcus]

http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/Headlines.html

The announcement came from IAU Central Bureau of Astronomical Telegrams, and was dated 13 September.

http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/special/08747.pdf

Eris is the Greek godess of DISCORD

The moon of Eris, as an alternative to "Eris I", has been named DYSNOMIA
which means LAWLESSNESS (and fits nicely with Discord)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysnomia_(moon)

or forgetfulness---trouble remembering names or words for things in general
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysnomia_(disease)

Michael Brown of Caltech, who leads the team that discovered the dwarf planet initially nicknamed Xena, chose the names, as was his perogative.
As of today, the Wiki article has already been corrected
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/136199_Eris

 

[Astronuc]

136199 Eris - not "Xena"

Eris (officially designated 136199 Eris), informally known by the nickname Xena, is the largest known dwarf planet in the solar system. Previously designated 2003 UB₃₁₃, it was nicknamed "Xena" by its discoverers. A trans-Neptunian object (TNO), it orbits the Sun in a region of space known as the scattered disc accompanied by at least one moon, Dysnomia; the pair are currently the most distant known objects in the solar system. Mike Brown, who led the Mount Palomar-based discovery team, announced in April 2006 that the Hubble Telescope has measured Eris' diameter to be 2400 km, slightly larger than Pluto.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/136199_Eris

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_planet#List_of_dwarf_planets

I didn't know about any vote.

I prefer 'Xena'!

 

[GeorgeSol]

It's not a giant dwarf is it?

Brown, apparently, did not push for a name per Phil Plait's blog after his phone visit...

http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2006/09/14/on-the-naming-of-eris-and-such/

...First off, he [Brown] told me that while they [Brown's team] didn’t actively pursue the name Dysnomia for Eris’s moon because it meant "lawlessness" (due to the Lucy Lawless/Xena angle), they didn’t avoid it either once they found the name...

 

[FeynmanMH42]

Am I the only one who picked up on the Dysnomia in-joke?
Lawlessness?
Xena?
No?

 

[Phobos]

Am I the only one who picked up on the Dysnomia in-joke?
Lawlessness?
Xena?
No?

See the Bad Astronomer link above.

 

[FeynmanMH42]

... that was right above me.
WHY THE HELL DID I MISS IT?!

 

[scott1]

I prefer 'Xena'!

I prefer 2003UB₃₁₃

 

[Astronuc]

· Dwarf planet is not even the biggest of its type
· Eris, body that reopened debate, is heavier

More bad news for downgraded Pluto
http://www.guardian.co.uk/space/article/0,,2103810,00.html

Astronomers have announced yet more bad news for the much-lamented former planet Pluto. Kicked out of the club of planets last year into a new category of dwarf planet, it is not even the biggest of those, scientists have found.

The same object that began Pluto's problems, a 1,500-mile-wide dwarf planet called Eris, has been confirmed as bigger and heavier than Pluto.

Using the Hubble space telescope and the Keck observatory in Hawaii, scientists used measurements of the orbit of Dysnomia, one of the satellites of Eris, to calculate that Eris is 27% heavier than Pluto. "This is sort of Pluto's last stand," said Emily Schaller, of California Institute of Technology, part of the research team that publishes its results today in Science.
. . .

Pluto was demoted from planet status at a meeting of the International Astronomical Union last year. The move solved an embarrassing fudge: when astronomers at the Lowell observatory announced the discovery of Pluto in 1930, they claimed it was several times larger than Earth, ensuring that it was quickly labelled the ninth planet. But as it turned out, Pluto was substantially smaller than the moon. At 1,480 miles, its width is no more than the distance from London to Moscow.

When Eris was spotted on the edge of the solar system in 2003, it forced astronomers to rethink their definition of what made a planet. Ian Crawford, of the Centre for Planetary Science and Astrobiology at Birkbeck College, said the latest research showed that the discovery of Pluto had been a lucky accident: rather than a proper planet, he said, Pluto had just been the first object discovered from the Kuiper Belt, a ring of rocks and comets that surrounds the outer solar system. "It goes to show that there's nothing special about Pluto."

. . .

 

[Chronos]

Alas poor Pluto, I knew her not. I suppose Charon will be demoted from moon to coorbitting planetoid. What is the solar system coming to?

 

[Garth]

There goes the neighbourhood.