'Tenth planet' may be bigger than expected
An observational error may have understated the size of the tenth planet - if "planet" is in fact what astronomers finally decide to call it.
The upper limit on the size of the object, temporarily called 2003 UB313, was earlier set at 3000 kilometres following the Spitzer Space Telescope's failure to spot any infrared source at its location. But as its discoverer Mike Brown notes on his website, the telescope was actually pointed at the wrong place, so the object could actually be bigger than that.
The Spitzer observations were made before the object was entered in public data bases, so Brown's group at Caltech, US, had to specify the positions of it and two other giant Kuiper Belt objects.
Spitzer was aimed correctly at two of them - but somewhere along the line an error crept in with the location of 2003 UB313. "The mistake was caught by one of the many extremely careful members of the Spitzer Science Center," Brown writes. Spitzer will check the right spot to see 2003 UB313 later in August.
- Login or register to post comments
- Printer-friendly version
- 2995 reads
- PDF version
More in Tux Machines
- Highlights
- Front Page
- Latest Headlines
- Archive
- Recent comments
- All-Time Popular Stories
- Hot Topics
- New Members
digiKam 7.7.0 is releasedAfter three months of active maintenance and another bug triage, the digiKam team is proud to present version 7.7.0 of its open source digital photo manager. See below the list of most important features coming with this release. |
Dilution and Misuse of the "Linux" Brand
|
Samsung, Red Hat to Work on Linux Drivers for Future TechThe metaverse is expected to uproot system design as we know it, and Samsung is one of many hardware vendors re-imagining data center infrastructure in preparation for a parallel 3D world. Samsung is working on new memory technologies that provide faster bandwidth inside hardware for data to travel between CPUs, storage and other computing resources. The company also announced it was partnering with Red Hat to ensure these technologies have Linux compatibility. |
today's howtos
|
Recent comments
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago
1 year 11 weeks ago