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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