Xena is big.

[swestrup]

It seems that new calculations of the size of Xena, the recently-discovered Kuiper-belt object place it around 1.3 times the size of Pluto, making it increasingly hard to justify not classifying it as a 10th planet, if we're gonna continue to insist that Pluto is a planet. It even has its own moon, nicknamed Gabrielle.

Comments

[talyesin.livejournal.com]

The geek in me really, really, REALLY wants the International Planetary Naming Commission to greenlight the names Xena and Gabrielle.

The science purist in me would prefer they rename the satellites according to established protocols, ie, after Greco-Roman mythology, or some other pantheon.

[dmckilli.livejournal.com]

There was an interesting perspective in the Economist (of all things) on this a few weeks ago. Basically, from a scientific perspective, there are really only two possibilities. One, the KBOs are not planets, by definition. In this case, Pluto gets demoted, and there are only eight planets, as Gustav Holst could have told you in 1914 :-). Oddly enough, current Pluto researchers are uniformly against this proposal :-), as appear to be the Great Unwashed Masses ("whadja mean there's only eight planets??"). Two, the KBOs can be planets if they are bigger than some arbitrary size. The current proposal is a diameter of 1000 km (on the grounds that 100 is silly, and 10,000 would exclude Earth itself!, in which case KBO UB313 (the catchy official name ;-)) will be renamed after a God, probably but not necessarily in the Graeco-Roman Pantheon.

Xena and Gabrielle would be nice ... but not likely.

[sps.livejournal.com]

From a scientific perspective, this is a linguistic question. Perhaps from a religious perspective this is a scientific question....

[dmckilli.livejournal.com]

Oh, I forgot. Seemingly the astrologers aren't happy about losing Pluto either. Go figure... ;-)

[sps.livejournal.com]

Actually, I can see how if you were an astrologer, losing Pluto would be pretty scary. It's interesting, perhaps even enlightening, to contrast this with the ways in which an astronomer would find losing Pluto scary.

[sps.livejournal.com]

...So, would the astrologers be thinking of applying the loss of Pluto retroactively, do you suppose?

[sps.livejournal.com]

Nergdrob squeen. What else needs to be said?

[capj.livejournal.com]

That's pretty funny, speaking as a bit of a "Xena" fan. There are going to be many of these KBOs to name, and the names are quite related to ancient Greco-Roman mythology, so why the heck not? I guess we'd better use all the obscure ancient names first, however. Sigh... No fun...

[capj.livejournal.com]

I'm sure the people of Renaissance Pictures are pleased as punch to see a product placement for their TV show ensconced in the heavens, even if only unofficially.