Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have measured a distant world more than half the size of Pluto. It's the biggest object found in our solar system since the discovery of Pluto itself 72 years ago. Full Story
Oh, very nifty. They'll have to rename it though. There is actually a convention for naming such things, and those nutters haven't followed it.
Well, I found this article too, it would've been better maybe if I'd found this earlier, before the other article. It's in principal the same, just worded a little differently. Large World Found Beyond Pluto - BBC It gives some info on the name. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! snip__________________________________________ Name vote Brown and colleague Chadwick Trujillo discovered the new world on 4 June. They used a telescope at the Palomar Observatory in California and followed-up their discovery with the Hubble Space Telescope. Astronomers named the new object Quaoar, after the creation myth of the Tongva people who inhabited the Los Angeles area before the arrival of the Spanish and other European settlers. To the indigenous peoples, Quaoar was the great force of nature that summoned all other things into being. However, Quaoar is not an official name -- at least not yet. In a few months, the International Astronomical Union, astronomy's governing body, will vote on it. snip__________________________________________
Nope. It was theorised by Kuiper that all the short term comets originated from a 'cloud' of debris beyond Neptune but not as far out as the oort cloud. This debris would be largely small bodies a few kilometers or so across. This is what they where looking for. There was a big debate last year on whether Pluto was really a planet or just a very big Kuiper belt object. This beastie is just another large Kuiper belt object. It's hardly big enough to qualify as an escaped moon. On BBC radio this morning the astronomer they interviewed admitted they may yet find something larger than Pluto/Charon but in a highly inclined orbit and farther out. Planet X, as per claims, is several times larger than Earth or a brown dwarf more massive than Jupiter.
