How does eris relate to astronomy

Astronomers heatedly argued whether Pluto was a planet or not on television shows. Reports from the meeting of the International Astronomical Union in Prague described some of the arguments as almost violent.

In the end, astronomers voted to define Pluto as something other than a planet. The new object was known as Xena until September thirteenth when it was officially given the name Eris. Astronomers Brown, Trujillo and Rabinowitz had suggested the name one week before. In mythology, Eris is the Greek name for the goddess of discord — or bad relations and trouble.

Greek mythology tells us that she was not invited to the marriage of a king named Peleus and a sea goddess called Thetis. Eris was angry that she was not invited. She put in motion a series of events that caused the Trojan War. The Greek poet Homer tells the story of that war in the long poem, The Iliad.

But Eris has not finished causing trouble. In September of last year, a team using a telescope at the Keck Observatory in Hawaii discovered that Eris has a moon. It has been given the name Dysnomia, the daughter of Eris in Greek mythology. And better measurements of Eris show that it is about two thousand four hundred kilometers across -- only a little larger than Pluto. In fact, Eris could even be smaller than Pluto. The team that discovered Eris says many more discoveries in the distant area beyond Neptune are likely in the near future.

Who knows what changes we will have to make to our model of the solar system next time? You can read and listen to this program on our Web site, voaspecialenglish. Search Search. Audio menu. Learning English Broadcast. Previous Next. October 10, Pluto is dropped from the list of planets.

Dwarf planet Eris orbits three times farther from the Sun than Pluto, making it difficult for astronomers to know its exact size and which world is bigger. The second part of this question is much easier to answer than the first. Spacecraft measurements can be thousands of times better than measurements from Earth. This is not an easy thing to do, but it did result in a very accurate answer — yet different nonetheless from the spacecraft number.

Currently, there are no planned missions to Eris, but this dwarf planet is nearly three times more distant than Pluto. So we would have even more to gain by a spacecraft visit to Eris. The first measurements were made in using the Hubble Space Telescope, which is just barely able to measure it directly. The best measure we have now was made by stellar occultations. Although this is a precise measurement, there are a lot of assumptions that go into measuring a stellar occultation, such as whether Eris is perfectly spherical.

What if it has a mountain the size of Mount Everest? Do you count that? These questions are almost impossible to answer by any means other than a spacecraft visit. So, I would say that we still do not know for sure which is larger, Pluto or Eris. How to view Pluto at opposition this week. What echoing radio waves taught us about Venus. March 13 marks years since William Herschel discovered Uranus. Since the mission to Pluto was a success, multiple studies arose for follow-on missions to deeper explore the Kuiper belt, Eris was evaluated among the candidates.

However, there are no clear missions stated to take place, yet. Eris Facts Eris is the same size as Pluto, but three times further from the Sun! Home » Planets » Dwarf Planets » Eris. It is the most distant discovered dwarf planet from the Sun and has the greatest mass of the five dwarf planets. It was nicknamed Xena by the team, and later named Eris, after the ancient Greek goddess of discord and strife.

The name fits since Eris remains at the center of a scientific debate about the definition of a planet. It is the second largest dwarf planet, almost as big as Pluto. When Pluto was still considered a planet, and Eris was discovered, it was considered to be the 10 th planet of the Solar System. It has an average distance of 68 AU away from the Sun.

Its actual distance can be checked online, as Eris is constantly tracked. Its apparent magnitude of Formation Eris is a member of a group of objects that orbit in a disc-like zone beyond the orbit of Neptune, called the Kuiper Belt. Structure, Surface and Atmosphere Eris has an estimated albedo of 0. Moons Eris has one known satellite, a moon that was discovered in , and was named Dysnomia, after the daughter of the goddess Eris.

Dysnomia Dysnomia is the second known largest moon of a dwarf planet. Life Habitability Due to extreme cold temperatures, it seems unlikely that life could exist there.

Did you know? Eris is currently in the Cetus constellation and it will enter the Pisces constellation in Studying the Edge of the Sun's Magnetic Bubble. Over the next 12 years, Lucy will fly by one main-belt asteroid and seven Trojan asteroids. JPL's lucky peanuts are an unofficial tradition at big mission events. Full Moon Guide: October - November A new paper details how the hydrological cycle of the now-dry lake at Jezero Crater is more complicated than originally thought.

DART's mission is to determine if flying a spacecraft into a small solar system body could be a reliable technique to deflect an asteroid. The spacecraft will continue collecting data about Mars, but engineers will stop sending commands until mid-October. Winds in the outermost "lane" of Jupiter's Great Red Spot are accelerating — a discovery made possible by Hubble. The dusty rocks of Jezero Crater are beginning to tell their story — thanks to the seven powerful science cameras aboard Perseverance.

This year, the minimum extent of Arctic sea ice dropped to 1. The lander cleared enough dust from one solar panel to keep its seismometer on through the summer, allowing scientists to study three big quakes.

NASA's Lucy is set to launch in October on the first mission to study the Trojan asteroids — swarms of asteroids associated with Jupiter. Lucy Is Going to Space! Researchers will use Webb to observe 17 actively forming planetary systems. Futuristic electric thrusters emitting a cool blue glow will guide the Psyche spacecraft through deep space to a metal-rich asteroid.