BECAUSE THE NINTH PLANET IS PLUTO, DAMN YOUR EYES.
:pause:
Caltech researchers have found evidence of a giant planet tracing a bizarre, highly elongated orbit in the outer solar system. The object, which the researchers have nicknamed Planet Nine, has a mass about 10 times that of Earth and orbits about 20 times farther from the sun on average than does Neptune (which orbits the sun at an average distance of 2.8 billion miles). In fact, it would take this new planet between 10,000 and 20,000 years to make just one full orbit around the sun.
It’s actually pretty interesting stuff: read the whole thing. Just be prepared for a little anti-Plutonian bigotry at the end, there. Unwelcome, but not unexpected.
Via Memeorandum.
Thank you for keeping the flame alive.
.
And it’s Persephone. Come on. We’ve been calling it that for decades. “Planet Nine.” Good grief.
Where are we going?
PLANET TEN!
When?
REAL SOON!
13th.
Pluto, Ceres, Eris, and MakeMake.
When we were self-righteously told that for Pluto to be a planet, Ceres would have to be considered one as well, I considered those terms acceptable.
(Hamea and Vesta excluded because they have not enough gravity to become spherical. Which seems a reasonable cut-off to me.)