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NEW
HAVEN, Conn. (Reuters) - Astronomers have discovered a new
minor planet between Neptune and Pluto in the outer fringes
of the solar system, Yale University said Wednesday.
The
minor planet or planetoid, officially named 2000 EB173,
measures about 400 miles (650 km) in diameter or about one-fourth
the size of Pluto, a Yale astronomer said. Because of its
small size, the new planet is known as a "planetoid"
or "plutino," which means "Little Pluto."
"As far as we can tell, this guy has been there since
Day One of the solar system, it"s one of the original
players, and in that sense it"s like one of the planets,"
said Charles Baltay, chairman of Yale"s physics department.
"Anything smaller than Pluto would be considered a
minor planet or planetoid, and in my book, "minor planet,"
"planetoid" and "plutino" are the same,"
Baltay told Reuters in an interview.
Astronomers
spotted the minor planet using an unusually powerful telescope
at the CIDA Observatory in Merida, Venezuela. "The
significance of this finding? It"s just, Wow!"
Baltay said. "After all these years, we can still find
something new in our solar system." "Some of it
is luck," he said. "We looked in the right place.
The other is the precision of our instrumentation."
The team of Yale-led astronomers stumbled upon the reddish
planetoid when they were searching the skies for quasars,
supernovas and other objects. It was spotted through a computer-aided
search of thousands of images recorded in a six-hour period
on the night of March 15.
Although
many objects have been recorded in the area known as the
"Kuiper Belt" just outside of Pluto"s orbit,
none has been as large as the new planetoid. "Of the
dozens of minor planets that have been discovered thus far,
this one is the biggest," Baltay said. "These
guys orbit the sun just like the planets, in stable orbits,
and as far as we can tell, will not collide, ever."
Baltay said it is customary that whoever discovers a new
object in the solar system is allowed to name it, but only
after it has circled the sun twice. Unfortunately for Baltay,
it will take 2000 EB173 about 243 years to circle the sun
once. In addition to Yale astronomers, the discovery team
included the CIDA Observatory"s director, Gustavo Bruzual,
and scientists from Indiana University and Venezuela"s
University of the Andes.
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