Celestia Forums

Moon Found for "10th Planet"
Posted: October 2005

(Oct. 1, 2005) The most distant object discovered in our solar system is 2003 UB313, nicknamed ?€?Xena.?€

Hey, thanks for that information, Planet X!

I didn't even know we had a Xena!

Take care.

'Ray!

Star Wars: "That's no moon!"
Spiff: "That's no planet!"

Hmm, I wonder what Brown will name the moon? What was the name of Xena's companion in that TV series with Lucy Lawless?

Spiff.

Gabrielle, played by Renee O'Connor.

I'm glad this is a nickname; I would have sworn that tehre was a mythical Xena character, not a god but a hero or some such thing, but apparently not.

So unless the IAU starts allowing any old name for these objects as they do for asteroids, then I don't think the name will stick.

...John...

Okay, now I understand...

The planet? is not a new discovery, it's just been given a new, tentative name.
That it has a moon is news. You can find out more HERE.

As Planet X said, this is the object formerly known as 2003 UB313. You have
to admit that a planet named "Xena" sounds a whole lot more exciting than a
planet named "2003 UB313."

This is interesting though. A moon circling its primary way, WAY out
there in the Kuiper Belt. Also interesting because the primary is further
away from our Sun than anything else we've been able to identify thus far.

Thanks again for the info.

The scientific paper relating to the discovery should be available on Monday. Once I get the data, I'll post the details (if nobody beats me to it) as well as update my 2003 UB313 addon. Later!

J P

thanks PLANETX for the info about 10th planets moon, So they have put a name too to the 10th planet, what a cracky name? is XENA any god of ROMANS?(if not they have put a bad feeling to the old roman empire) , i think that moons name will be CONAN THE BARBARIAN

but gives wonder when think that it's now 10 planets, is it available in CELESTIA addons? am curious to take a look

has anyone read this news from NASA http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solarsystem/voyager-092205-feature.html

it would be cool if voyager finds another planet(probably not), but why this discorvery(10th planet) took so long???

A name for the body, or even if this TNO should be called a planet, has not yet been decided by the IAU.

Xena is the name of an heroine in a popular TV program.

An article about possible names for the TNO is at
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7811

So how long before the IAU decides one way or the other?

StarSeeker wrote:So how long before the IAU decides one way or the other?

God knows. One of my former colleagues sent in a naming request for an are on Ganymede years ago and it still hasn't been looked at by the IAU

Heck, they still can't decide what a planet is...

Xena isn't a real mythological name; it looks like a feminised form of Xeno, meaning 'stranger' or 'foreigner' ; a suitable name for a peripatetic warrior I suppose (not a fan of the series myself)

There is no way this planet/object will be called Xena.

Perhaps when we start naming exoplanets, and start dredging the realms of entertainment for names...

Considering the potential for the sheer number of planets that we find, I don't doubt that we'll start allowing them names much as we do asteroids.

...John...

I don't mind them calling the planet Xena and it's moon Gabrielle...

WildMoon wrote:I don't mind them calling the planet Xena and it's moon Gabrielle...

I actually wouldn't mind, either. Planet X = Planet Xena! At any rate, I have some new information that strongly indicates the new planet may in fact be the size of Earth's moon. So, here goes.

From Mike Brown's website:

How big is the moon?
Right now we are not certain how big the moon is, but we can make some guesses based on how much light it reflects. We know that it is about 60 times fainter than the planet, suggesting that it is perhaps 8 times smaller in diameter than the planet. Interestingly, the planet-moon system appears similar to the Earth-Moon system, except reduced in scale by a factor of about 5-10. Xena is about 5 times smaller than the Earth. Gabrielle is about 8 times smaller than the Moon. And the two are separated by a distance that is about 10 times smaller than the Earth-Moon separation. Not a perfect match but awfully close.

From Wikipedia's entry on Xena itself:

Moon
A moon orbiting 2003 UB313 was announced on October 2nd, 2005 [13], following its discovery on September 10th. It was temporarily designated S/2005 (2003 UB313) 1 and nicknamed Gabrielle by its discoverers. Because the satellite is about 60 times fainter than 2003 UB313, the diameter of the satellite can be estimated to be approximately eight times smaller than Earth's Moon (meaning it is about 450 km in diameter). It was discovered using the Keck Observatory in Hawaii. Further observations will be needed to pin down the orbital period of the moon, and in doing so determine the mass of the 2003 UB313 system. The period is presently estimated at ~14 days.

From Wikipedia's separate entry on Gabrielle:

S/2005 (2003 UB313) 1 is a moon around the cubewano Kuiper Belt trans-Neptunian object 2003 UB313, the presumed tenth planet of our Solar System. It is the only moon observed for the presumptive planet. It has been given the nickname Gabrielle after the name of Xena: Warrior Princess' Xena's sidekick, Gabrielle, as 2003 UB313's nickname is Xena.

S/2005 (2003 UB313) 1 was discoverd in an astrophoto taken by the Keck II telescope in September 2005, and was announced in October 2005. It is about 60x fainter than the primary. It is estimated to have a planetary orbit of 14 days at a distance of 1/10 the Earth moon distance, and a solar orbit of 560 years (same as for 2003 UB313). It is estimated to have a diameter of 450 km, 1/8th the size of 2003 UB313.

See what I mean? I'm starting to wonder if Spitzer in fact saw 2003 UB313 in late August and found the new planet to be the size of our moon. Stay tuned! Later!

J P

WildMoon wrote:I don't mind them calling the planet Xena and it's moon Gabrielle...

That would be horrible, important objects deserve important names imo. If it is to be considered a planet then I think it should follow the naming rules for planets. Naming a planet after a tv show is horrible imo.

Grief! So Brown did nickname that moon Gabrielle after all!

Spiff.

In a few centuries some of these names from popular culture might become respectable enough to be suitable for names of exoplanets; after all, many of Uranus' moons are named after characters from The Tempest and The Rape of the Lock.
Here are some imaginary OA exoplanets named after classical twentieth century icons;
http://img66.imageshack.us/img66/835/daffy6mo.jpg

eburacum45 wrote:In a few centuries some of these names from popular culture might become respectable enough to be suitable for names of exoplanets; after all, many of Uranus' moons are named after characters from The Tempest and The Rape of the Lock.
Here are some imaginary OA exoplanets named after classical twentieth century icons;
http://img66.imageshack.us/img66/835/daffy6mo.jpg

I can see that working a couple centuries from now, but not today.

At least nickknames tend to be fleeting, and proper names have a lot of thought put into them. 1992 QB1 was supposed to have been officially named "Smiley", but apparently the name was already taken by an asteroid -- thank goodness. To this day, that object, the first KBO discovered, has yet to receive an official name.

...John...

And I wander if all that thoughtfulness is worth the trouble. After all, a couple of centuries from now all the names of astronomical bodies will be just that: names. Very few people will know, and practically nobody will care, about the origins and meaning they carry.

The best thing to do would probably be simply to forbid the silliest names and adopt everything else. Xena, in my view, is borderline silly, though; Santa (and Little Helper) is definitely silly, although all these names are quite evocative (much more so than their alphanumeric code names).