Newly discovered '10th planet' also has a moon

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By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
(Filed: 03/10/2005)

The recently discovered object on the fringe of the solar system, which has triggered controversy over whether it counts as the "10th planet", has now been found to have a moon.

Latest estimates are that the planet, nicknamed Xena (after the TV warrior princess) is about 20 per cent larger than Pluto and nine billion miles from the Sun.

The moon, 100 times fainter than Xena and orbiting once every couple of weeks, was spotted on Sept 10 by the W M Keck Observatory in Hawaii by Prof Michael Brown and colleagues.

"Having a moon is something that most self-respecting planets have, so it is good to see that this one does too," said Prof Brown.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/10/03/nxena03.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/10/03/ixhome.html

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1. It's larger than Pluto, and has a moon

Come on, people, to heck with tradition.

We either have 8 planets, or 10 (or more) planets, but 9 is just arbitrary and anacronistic now.

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2. I want to see what mass estimate they get for Xena

I can't believe they haven't gotten it out of the orbital data yet. Cmon folks - tell us.