User:Alastor Moody/136199 Eris

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See also: 136199 Eris
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Eris compared to Pluto, 2005 FY9, 2003 EL61, Sedna, Orcus, Quaoar, Varuna, and Earth.
Eris compared to Pluto, 2005 FY9, 2003 EL61, Sedna, Orcus, Quaoar, Varuna, and Earth.

136199 Eris, formerly known as "2003 UB 313", is the largest known dwarf planet in the solar system. It was discovered by a team of Michael E. Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David Rabinowitz on January 5, 2005 from post-analysis of images of the outer solar system taken at 2003. Eris was also known to be dubbed as "Xena" for a while, and has one compained moon, Dysnomia, discovered on September 10, 2005 and was unofficially nicknamed as "Gabrielle". It was then officially named Eris on September 13, 2006 by the IAU. Eris was chosen from the Greek mythology as the goddess of personification of strife and discord while the satellite, Dysnomia, was chosen as Eris' lawless daughter in the Greek myths.

Several media files claimed that Eris (or Xena) has been the tenth planet along with several NASA astronomers and scientists who supported that idea because it was larger than Pluto since its discovery. But however on August 2006, Xena has demoted as the "tenth planet" to dwarf planet status, after the memebers of the IAU decided to re-define the term, "planet".

Currently, scientists are focused to do more direct measurements of Eris and its moon Dysnomia as well to look for more moons or any rings.

[edit] Classification and Orbit

Eris as viewed from its orbit.
Eris as viewed from its orbit.

Eris (a.k.a. Xena) is currently classified as a dwarf planet and a scattered disk object located within the Kupier-belt region and beyond Pluto's orbit. It is also classified as a "pluton", an object with similar size, orbit, and location when compared to Pluto.

Eris' orbit is approxiametly 556.7 years long, and currently is at its maximum distance from the Sun. It has an ellipitcal orbit tilted an angle about 44 degrees to the ecliptic.


[edit] See Also

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