March 2004 - Utah-Astronomy - mailman.xmission.com

Sedna/2004DW
by David L Bennett 16 Mar '04

16 Mar '04

Patrick, I may be the only one who was confused about this but I've been thinking that 2004DW and Sedna were the same object. It was only when Chuck stated that Sedna's perihelion was about 850 AU that I realized my mistake. 2004DW has not been named yet (unofficially) and has an orbit very similar to Pluto's. http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/sedna/ http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~chad/2004dw/ Dave

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Seat of the pants Sedna
by Chuck Hards 16 Mar '04

16 Mar '04

Hmm, this thing is really out there...to get an idea of distances beyond the classical solar system, Pluto is about 4 light-hours from the sun, but Sedna at the far point in it's orbit will be something like 5 light-days from the sun, or roughly 1/73 of a light year! Am I far off the mark? The old Solar System is a pretty respectable chunk of real estate these days, you know? (Man, won't that be tough duty for a Space Marine one day. "This isn't Sgt. Pinback. My name is Bill Fruge, I'm a fuel maintenance technician...") __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - More reliable, more storage, less spam http://mail.yahoo.com

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Sims for cloudy nights
by Dale Hooper 16 Mar '04

16 Mar '04

I'm not usually a PC gamer, but the following two spaceflight simulators are just INCREDIBLE. Both of them are also FREE programs. The imagery in these two programs is spectacular. I could keep going with the superlatives about these programs for quite some time. <g> www.orbitersim.com - Space shuttle simulator and more http://www.shatters.net/celestia/ - Spaceflight simulator, solar system to interstellar travel (also for Mac OSX). Now if I could just get them to include relativistic effects. <VBG> This program was featured in S&T about a year ago. Clear skies, Dale.

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Sedna
by Jim Gibson 16 Mar '04

16 Mar '04

Joe I really enjoyed your article "NASA finds odd little object in distant space " JG Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - More reliable, more storage, less spam

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KBO's
by Chuck Hards 15 Mar '04

15 Mar '04

I'll get excited when a big object is discovered out there that's cylindrical, and headed sunward! C. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - More reliable, more storage, less spam http://mail.yahoo.com

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Re: [Utah-astronomy] The rest of the story
by Michael Carnes 15 Mar '04

15 Mar '04

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The rest of the story
by Jim Gibson 15 Mar '04

15 Mar '04

We all know that the Spirit rover has had some problems, but check out this site for what really happened: http://images.spaceref.com/news/2004/rover.armspin.mov Jim Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - More reliable, more storage, less spam

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More on the new object
by Patrick Wiggins 15 Mar '04

15 Mar '04

http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~chad/sedna Patrick

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10th "planet"?
by Patrick Wiggins 14 Mar '04

14 Mar '04

Get ready for another round of "is Pluto a planet?" http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,8968352%5E290…

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More on new "planet"
by Patrick Wiggins 14 Mar '04

14 Mar '04

Astronomers discover 'new planet' By Dr David Whitehouse BBC News Online science editor * Astronomers have discovered a new world circling the Sun farther away than other planets. * Found in an outer Solar System survey by the recently launched Spitzer Space Telescope, it has been called Sedna after the Inuit goddess of the ocean. Observations show it is about 2,000 km across, and it may even be larger than Pluto which is 2,250 km across. The Hubble Space Telescope has also seen it. Details will be announced by the US space agency Nasa on Monday. * World of rock and ice * Sedna is the largest object found circling the Sun since the discovery of Pluto in 1930. Its size is uncertain. One astronomer told BBC News Online that it may even be larger than Pluto itself. It was found during the course of a survey led by Dr Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology. Scientists are only midway through this three-year project. KUIPER BELT OBJECTS Icy planetary bodies that orbit beyond Neptune in the distant region of the Solar System More than 400 such objects are currently known They are believed to be remnants of the formation of the Solar System and among the most primitive objects available for study Preliminary calculations suggest that it is 10bn kilometres from Earth in a region of space known as the Kuiper Belt (KB). The KB contains hundreds of known objects and astronomers believe there are many more awaiting discovery. Most are small worlds of rock and ice but some, like Sedna, could be as large as or larger than Pluto. The importance of Sedna is that it is the first such world discovered in its normal orbit. Other similar though smaller worlds, like Quaoar and Varuna, originated in the KB but have since been perturbed into different orbits. * Planet debate * Following the objects discovery astronomers at the Tenagra Observatory in Arizona were asked to provide positional information so that an orbit could be determined for Sedna. The new discovery will reignite the debate about what is a planet. One group of astronomers believe that Pluto is not a true planet but merely one of the largest of a vast number of minor objects in the outer Solar System. The alternative standpoint is that Pluto is a planet and those who believe that will have to classify Sedna as the tenth planet. Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/3511678.stm Published: 2004/03/15 01:12:07 GMT © BBC MMIV

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