The weekly newsletter for Fed2 by ibgames

EARTHDATE: September 17, 2006

Official News - page 11

REAL LIFE NEWS: XENA RENAMED - IT'S OFFICIAL

by Hazed

The distant chunk of rock which was the cause of all the upset over whether Pluto was or was not a planet - it wasn't, astronomers eventually decided - now has an official name. It's been known as Xena up till now, after the warrior princess from the TV series, but now the discoverer has officially named it Eris, after the Greek goddess of discord. The moon which orbits this body will be called Dysnomia, who is Eris' daughter, and the spirit of lawlessness.

The discovery of this sizeable chunk of rock out on the fringes of the Solar System, and the later discovery that it was actually bigger than Pluto, was what kick-started the whole debate about what a planet is. Given the bitter arguments that are still ongoing, naming it after the Greek goddess of discord does seem appropriate.

Eris is the farthest known Sol object from the sun, orbitting the Earth once every 560 years, and it has a surface temperature of -250 degrees C, so it's not exactly the perfect vacation spot!


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