http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/new_object_040219.html
Huge Mini-World Found in Outer Solar System By Robert Roy Britt space.com 19 February 2004 A newfound hunk of ice and rock beyond Neptune is larger than most and might contend for the title of the biggest object in the solar system besides the Sun, planets and moons. The object is in a region of frozen, comet-like bodies called the Kuiper Belt. The discovery was announced today by the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Mass. Preliminary observations suggest the icy rock, labeled 2004-DW, is 520-1,170 miles wide (840 to 1,880 kilometers). Physics dictates that objects this large be generally round, like mini-worlds. The largest known Kuiper Belt Object, or KBO, is called Quaoar (KWAH-o-ar) and was discovered in 2002. Quaoar is roughly 780 miles (1,250 kilometers) wide, about half as big as Pluto. It orbits the Sun every 288 years, mostly beyond Pluto's orbit. More observations will be needed to pin down the size of the newfound KBO. It may turn out to be much smaller than Quaoar, or it could be bigger. Researchers estimate the size of these objects by noting their brightness and making assumptions about how much light they reflect. Those assumptions assume a certain level of reflectivity for the surface material. The discovery was made Tuesday by NASA's Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking Program at Mt. Palomar in southern California. The finding was confirmed with observations from the Starkenburg Observatory in Spain and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Table Mountain Observatory in southern California. "It wasn't moving much, so I knew it was way out there," Table Mountain's Jim Young told SPACE.com. Researchers measure an object's movement against the fairly stable background stars to gauge its distance. "I went home and told my wife, '"That things gotta be big.'" 2004-DW is nearly 47 times as far from the Sun as Earth is. Scientists expect more large objects to be found in the Kuiper Belt now that search techniques and technology have been refined. Some astronomers say it's possible that an object larger than Pluto might still lurk there unfound. ______________________________________________ Meteorite-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
