Is there a tenth planet in our solar system? Is it authentic? What is its name?

Question

I have been reading news paper articles on this with interest. But I didn't get any satisfactory or authentic news so for. Can any one please help me? Thanks

Answer 1

There is no 10th planet (yet). The previous rule has been to be considered a planet, it had to orbit the sun and be no smaller than Pluto. There had been spherical asteroids that was once considered planets, such as Ceres, but once we figured it was one amongst many of in the asteroid belt, it was dropped.

However, in July 2005 an asteroid temporarily labeled 2003 UB313 and nicknamed Xena was found outside the orbit of Neptune (Kuiper Belt object) and it is larger than Pluto. The problem is that both Pluto and 2003UB313 are so much smaller than other planets and their orbits are way off plane. Scientist are still debating. It will either be added as 10th planet or we would drop Pluto and go with 8 planets or include anything that is round. I prefer the last two options.

Here is my list of biggest small round objects with earth included for comparison.
Diameter (km)
Earth 12,000
Moon 3,387

Ceres 900
Vesta 500
Pallas 520
Hygiea 430

Pluto 2,258
Charon 1,172
UB313 "Xena" 3,000

Sedna 1,800
Quaoar 1,250
Varuna 900

Jupiter's Largest Moons
Ganymede 5,268
Callisto 4,800
Io 3,636
Europa 3,138

Saturn's Largest Moons
Titan 5,150
Iapetus 1,436
Rhea 1,528
Dione 1,120

Answer 2

The Planet X hypothesis, first put forth by Percival Lowell in the late 19th century, stated that there was a fifth gas giant beyond the orbit of Neptune, providing the most common basis for the existence of a tenth planet. The X stands for unknown, rather than the Roman numeral for 10 — when Lowell postulated Planet X, the known planets totaled eight. Planet X was intended to explain perceived anomalies in the orbits of the outer planets. More accurate measurements taken by space probes such as Voyager 2 caused the anomalies to vanish without the need for an extra planet, and the hypothesis was discredited in the 1990s.

With the discovery of the Kuiper belt, the astronomical community began instead to increasingly expect the status of tenth planet would most likely be awarded, if ever, to some other Pluto-like object. The newly-discovered TNO 2003 UB313 is the most popular candidate for status as the tenth planet. Whether it is elevated to this status will depend largely on clarifications to the definition of the term "planet" presently being undertaken by the International Astronomical Union (IAU).

Answer 3

Officially the answer would be "no" as the so-called tenth planet , 2003 UB313 (aka Xena) has not been officially recognized.

That being said, however, let's have some fun with this question. Strictly speaking, depending on the definition of what is a planet, one could make an argument that there is a tenth planet much closer. The planetary body named Luna, which we refer to as "the moon" is actually a coorbital planet.
You can prove this to yourself by calculating the gravitational attraction between the earth and the moon and comparing that to the gravitational attraction between the sun and the moon. You'll find that the moon is attracted to the sun about 2 to 3 times more strongly than it is attracted to the earth.
If you plot out the moon's orbit, you will see that the moon's orbit is always curved towards the sun. But when the moon passes between the earth and the sun, the moon's orbit actually curves AWAY from the earth.

The fact that the moon is actually larger than some bodies that are already recognized as planets (Pluto, for example) certainly adds credibility to it's potential claim as being classified as a planet. Think about it.

Just a little known and fun fact to ponder....

Answer 4

General question. What makes a planet a planet? Is it the mass? Diameter? Orbit? Distance from the sun?

I would say that the following are minimum characteristics of planets.

1 & 2 below are arbitrary, you may prefer other variables.

1. Minimum Mass. 10^20 Kg. (about 1/100th the mass of Pluto).
2. Minimum Diameter. 1,500 Km (about 900 miles)
3. Orbit. Must be in orbit around a sun, and not a planet (therefore, Luna is not a planet, even though it's larger than Pluto).
4. Distance from sun. Not relevant, as long as it is clearly in orbit around the sun. Therefore, a massive sun may have planets dozen's of light-years away.
5. Is not itself a sun. That would be a binary or higher system.
6. Must not be in interstellar space, not associated with a sun or suns.
7. Not in a field of other bodies with the same approximate orbit. That would leave out anything in the Asteroid Belt and Oort Cloud.


Now, how about "Xena" (aka, 2003 UB313)? To Hades (Greek God of the underworld) with conventions for naming planets. Xena is perfect. And Gabrielle for the moon.

Answer 5

I read some about that yesterday....I think that they are still debating and voting about it in the scientific community, I do know that if they decide that this new hunk of ice isn't a planet they may be taking Pluto from our list of planets in this solar system. Apparently the new "planet" is around the same size of Pluto.
2003UB313 is the name of the planet right now, there is some word of calling it Xena if it is decided to be a planet.

Answer 6

Using the Hubble Space Telescope, scientist have discovered an object that has been named as Xena or 2003 UB 313. But some people consider this object as a Kuiper belt object and they refuse to accept this as a planet. They even say that pluto is also a kuiper belt object and they also include that our solar system has 8 planets.

Answer 7

Pluto.10th Planet Discovered, 7.29.2005
B313 is the farthest known object in the solar system—even further than Sedna, ... California Institute of Technology: 10th Planet Beyond Pluto.10th Planet Discovered, 7.29.2005

Answer 8

There's actually some debate on whether there's even nine - Pluto isn't thought by some to qualify as a planet, and it would seem unlikely another planet would be further out in the solar system (or that one closer would not have been discovered already).

Answer 9

Planet X is a really popular answer to this. From what I heard what some people THINK! happened was an asteroid hit another planet ( in our solar system ) and broke of a piece the size of a planet or something like that. IDK look it up with National Geographic or something.

Answer 10

I think the object you are thinking of is called Xena. It's larger than Pluto, but has not been officially recognized as a planet.