NASA 發現太陽系第十顆行星

NASA-Funded Scientists Discover Tenth Planet

07.29.05


A planet larger than Pluto has been discovered in the outlying regions of the solar system.

The planet was discovered using the Samuel Oschin Telescope at Palomar Observatory near San Diego, Calif. The discovery was announced today by planetary scientist Dr. Mike Brown of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., whose research is partly funded by NASA.




Image above: This time-lapse image of a newfound planet in our solar system, called 2003UB313, was taken on Oct. 21, 2003, using the Samuel Oschin Telescope at the Palomar Observatory near San Diego, Calif. The planet, circled in red, is seen moving across a field of stars. The three images were taken about 90 minutes apart. Scientists did not discover the planet until Jan. 8, 2005. Image credit: Samuel Oschin Telescope, Palomar Observatory
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The planet is a typical member of the Kuiper belt, but its sheer size in relation to the nine known planets means that it can only be classified as a planet, Brown said. Currently about 97 times further from the sun than the Earth, the planet is the farthest-known object in the solar system, and the third brightest of the Kuiper belt objects.

"It will be visible with a telescope over the next six months and is currently almost directly overhead in the early-morning eastern sky, in the constellation Cetus," said Brown, who made the discovery with colleagues Chad Trujillo, of the Gemini Observatory in Mauna Kea, Hawaii, and David Rabinowitz, of Yale University, New Haven, Conn., on January 8.

Brown, Trujillo and Rabinowitz first photographed the new planet with the 48-inch Samuel Oschin Telescope on October 31, 2003. However, the object was so far away that its motion was not detected until they reanalyzed the data in January of this year. In the last seven months, the scientists have been studying the planet to better estimate its size and its motions.

"It's definitely bigger than Pluto," said Brown, who is a professor of planetary astronomy.

Scientists can infer the size of a solar system object by its brightness, just as one can infer the size of a faraway light bulb if one knows its wattage. The reflectance of the planet is not yet known. Scientists can not yet tell how much light from the sun is reflected away, but the amount of light the planet reflects puts a lower limit on its size.

"Even if it reflected 100 percent of the light reaching it, it would still be as big as Pluto," says Brown. "I'd say it's probably one and a half times the size of Pluto, but we're not sure yet of the final size.

"We are 100 percent confident that this is the first object bigger than Pluto ever found in the outer solar system," Brown added.

The size of the planet is limited by observations using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, which has already proved its mettle in studying the heat of dim, faint, faraway objects such as the Kuiper-belt bodies. Because Spitzer is unable to detect the new planet, the overall diameter must be less than 2,000 miles, said Brown.

A name for the new planet has been proposed by the discoverers to the International Astronomical Union, and they are awaiting the decision of this body before announcing the name.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at Caltech. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

For more information and images see:

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solars...905-images.html or

http://www.astro.caltech.edu/palomarnew/sot.html

For information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/home/index .

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Newest Member of Our Solar System



Image above: This artist's concept shows the planet catalogued as 2003UB313 at the lonely outer fringes of our solar system. Our Sun can be seen in the distance. The new planet, which is yet to be formally named, is at least as big as Pluto and about three times farther away from the Sun than Pluto. It is very cold and dark. The planet was discovered by the Samuel Oschin Telescope at the Palomar Observatory near San Diego, Calif., on Jan. 8, 2005. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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當然...只是聲稱...官方還沒有將其定位為行星,
一個比冥王星大, 遠的星體, 那麼冥王星會被除名嗎?
如果會的話...亦只會是九大行星,....

不過我個人喜好是太陽系只有八大行星

本篇文章已被 Alexchan 於 Jul 31 2005, 19:40 編輯過

一切還要看國際天文聯會的決定.

如果係,所有小學 ge 常識課本中教天文都 要改了......

回上樓
個d搶錢既出版商又有一筆了
另外回AlexChan哥哥
應該唔會除名
畢竟冥王星始終繞住太陽轉

唔止，外國所有占星學家都要失業。

一位在nasa工作的校友回校演講,他證實了此消息

↑
他證實了乜?
一個比冥王星大, 遠的星體?
or列為十大行星?

不是頗久之前也發現了一個比冥王星大, 遠的星體嗎???

↑
無錯,我就係問呢樣野= =