To help with the "plutoing" of Pluto, to demote it, extraordinary intellectual and unassailable mathematical efforts and small sums of money, have gone into Hubble Space Telescope image analysis to prove without a particle of doubt that Pluto is not even the largest body amongst the Trans-Neptunians!

The image of Eris and it's moon Dysnomia, is courtesy and Copyright WM Keck Observatory.

Yes, there was a real effort to carefully measure the diameter of Eris in hopes of making sure that Eris was bigger than Pluto. This would perhaps give more weight to the demotion scheme that plutoed Pluto. This diameter measurement work involved the Hubble Space Telescope, and measurements of nearby star images to validate that the skewing of the internal correcting optics would not diminish or enlarge the resulting diameter. Maybe Eris could have been a tenth planet -- and now there is not even a ninth planet!

I've read the paper, a massive effort in itself, but worth doing if one is to appreciate how close the diameter of Eris is to Pluto's diameter. This effort puts strength and faith into the expertise of the descendants of the old Tinsley Laboratories to take Perkin Elmer's screwed-up optics and fix them. (I'll earn no friends by forcing you to read the paper, no indeed, unless you truly appreciate fine corrected optical instruments. (If I can find it again, I'll reference the link.)

(I can't find it! I think it was at Los Alamos, but I can't find the one I read. If I can't find it in a few days I'll privately eat a little crow, and correct this and surrender. Darn it all. Even figurative Crow is bitter.)

The orbital period computed for Eris is 557.44 years or 203,603.377 days +/- 40.13 days. By searching through old images, there have been found 195 observations totally covering an arc of the orbit of 19090 days, or 52.27 years long -- with first observation (unwittingly) 03 September 1954 and the most recent, 09 December 2006 used to compute the orbit and the orbital elements. The orbit's eccentricity is 0.43999 making it a very egg-shaped orbit ranging from 37.93 AU from the Sun to 97.53 AU at greatest distance.

When the diameter measurement is finally published it will be found to be around 2400 km +/-100 km.

The orbit of Eris around the Sun is "retrograde," backwards counter to the orbits of everything else in the Solar system -- except comets. Granted a few moon's orbits are retrograde, though before gravitational capture, they likely orbited in the other direction.

Since we don't know of any other "dwarf planets" with retrograde orbits, we could call Eris a giant distant comet!

Perhaps Eris is one of the "short-futured" objects that recently encountered a dancing partner far out in the Kuiper Belt that turned it loose after the dance in the "wrong" direction.

It is not unlikely that Eris could last billions of years in it's current orbit, but it is a curiosity that will keep Eris alone for a time in it's own retrograde "dwarf planet" class. However, if it should get a dance partner way out in the Kuiper belt to throw it toward the Sun, pray it falls into the Sun. It would not be good for a thing 69% as large as the Moon to be whizzing around the inner solar system.

No doubt, solar system astronomers are excited at the possibility of dozens of dwarf planet retrograde objects! Traditional astronomers, with new instruments can continue looking for the "ninth Real planet" orbiting either direction in the vast outreaches of the Kuiper belt and stretching into the Oort Cloud, no longer having the requirement to have a planet near the equatorial plane of the Sun, nor to have it orbit in the same direction as the other real and defined "planets."

~Images Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech.~

This link tells about the Oort Cloud and the Kuiper belt.

http://sse.jpl.nasa.gov/planets/profile.cfm?Object=OortCloud&Display=OverviewLong

Image below: NASA

It is doubtful that the dwarf planet class will be trully acceptable until more than three are found fitting to be called dwarf planets like Quaor, and Sedna, and why just Ceres with it's white spot looking like a crater in ice?

How about plutoing tiny Mercury? Of course, NOT as a "dwarf planet," but perhaps into a "sub-planet" classification. We know, for example, that gas giant planets exist around stars in orbits closer to their primary -- than sub-planet Mercury. To heck with astronomical tradition -- "Open" it up! Sub-giant gas planets, or maybe(?) Sub-gas giant planets, or super gas giant planets. We can remove the value of traditions!

Plutoing is probably not over. We now have a fine "word" for the breaking of classes of objects into sub-objects. We have heard of sub-species, subjunctives, sub-prime, all of which now could be described in sub-plutoed terms.

But the people on the IAU committee can enjoy their cleverness while their peers let it last. Should this mean the promotion of other asteroids to dwarf planet status? (I don't really think that would be justified, but water-ice in the asteroid belt, exploitable(!) is a great concept. Yet to promote great asteroid Ceres to dwarf planet status? I liked the Ceres, Asteroid (1) designation just fine because it also relates to the student the long history of astronomy.)

As mentioned elsewhere, from a mass standpoint, the solar system consists of a star -- the Sun, a planet -- Jupiter, and scattered debris.

One NASA scientist, specifying he NOT be identified, quipped,"Our New Horizons is on its way. We were headed to the Ninth Planet. But they took it away! Now there are only eight planets, and I fear for the smallest of them. We ARE going to Pluto, whatever it is! It is a long way, takes until 2015, maybe it will change again by the time we get there?"

Maybe indeed.

Appropriately, for the plutoing of Pluto, Eris is named for the Greek goddess of discord and strife. She, with her deceptive skin-deep beauty, viciously stirs up jealousy and envy to cause fighting and anger among men. For the wedding of Peleus and Thetis all the gods and goddesses were invited -- with the exception of Eris. This enraged her at gods and men alike because of her exclusion! Spitefully, she caused a quarrel among the goddesses that led to the Trojan War. (And now you know, there may be revenge in the astronomical community for the hubris of Fame! Jesting here, a bit.)

But Eris, you know how you are, like a soap-opera villain; and guys, watch out if you are dating a fox named Eris.

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Dwarf Planet PLUTO, and its moon's Charon, Hydra, and Nix
Below is the first thing ever "plutoed" and recognized as the source of the new word -- plutoed!
~

~

Pluto, and what was done by a small group of astronomers in the IAU nomenclature sub-committee, is the source of the new words, "plutoed," "plutoing", and "plutoes," giving rise to the extensions, "plutoer", "plutoee."

In an interesting twist of the IAU's wisdom, even such stretches of meaning as promoting the "unworthy" or barely-worthy from Asteroid status to Dwarf Planet status, can now be covered. What a concept in a word that covers so much!

For example, astronomer's with once promising careers can be handled by plutoing them to the nomenclature committee of the IAU. The possibilities are endless; the wisdom amazing!

Nearly everyone has seen someone or something plutoed into places that were not appropriate or warranted -- simply for the sake of change or a show of power. Wisdom, indeed!

PLUTO's wrap sheet: Known former associates "Planets Association."

Additional Facts: Plutoed from "Planets Association" by IAU conspiracy, 2006. Little is known about the IAU's conspiracy to select associates to be shoved into the "dwarf planet assn." Of the 'three dwarfs' known, only well-characterized Pluto is detailed.

Average distance from sun: 3.67 billion miles, 39.482 AU , varies from 48.481 AU to 30.171 AU
Diameter: 2302 km
Moons: Charon, Hydra, Nix
Pluto's density: about 2 grams/cubic centimeter.
"Day" Rotation: Retrograde 6.387 days, 153.3 hours
Surface gravity at equator: 0.81 m/sec/sec, 8% earths, 100 lbs Earth weighs 8 lbs Pluto
Escape Velocity, 4570 km/hr, 2840 mph, 1270 m/sec (Earth 25,022 m/sec)

Before his death, Pluto's discoverer, Clyde W. Tombaugh, had been asked what he thought about the prospects of finding a larger Tenth Planet, a planet "out there" beyond Pluto. He responded that finding something really sizable, near the plane of the ecliptic was becoming more remote every year, simply because our planetary interests lay within the ecliptic plane and although many observations were being made, many surveys, nothing of substantial "size" had been yet detected. Something the size of Uranus, Neptune or even Earth would have to be at very, very great distance and if it existed, at a considerable distance above or below the ecliptic. He would not at all be surprised at the discovery of many more Pluto-sized objects, Trans-Neptunian objects.

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Asteroid # 1, CERES, was Plutoed into the "dwarf planet" category!

Discovered 1801-Jan-01 by Piazzi, G. at Palermo

Little is really directly "known" about Ceres, other than it's nearness in the 'hood. It is one of the objects we have not visited with a probe or explored, close up and personal-like. (However, I wrote this before the Dawn Mission was launched! We will know a great deal about Ceres when the mission arrives, surveys, and reports. Dawn goes to Vesta,arrives 2011 then after study and reports, leaves Vesta and arrives at Ceres in February, 2015.)

In a traditional astronomy sense, Ceres has been examined and imaged with a variety of electromagnetic wavelengths, explored mathematically and computationally. Those examinations suggest a number of credible and intriguing possibilities. By plutoing Ceres into the new "Dwarf Planet" category, the not so subtle motives of the Pluto Conspiracy become more obvious. One interesting concept suggests Ceres to have been in the "transition zone" between rocky things like the inner planets and watery-icy things like the Gas Giant large moons. Personally, I can't see a Ceres like object lasting 4.5 billion years where it is parked in the Belt. I think it should have been resonantly pummeled to chunks, and possibly even "smithereened" by Jupiter's majority control (by mass-proxy and therefore gravity) over the entire belt. Oh, not that Ceres hasn't been in the mix for over a billion years. I do not know if any at JPL have played with a 4.567 billion year old Ceres in the Belt. I like to think, with the possible water-ice, it migrated inward from way out. The n-body problem. Complex.

Asteroids, especially tiny ones number in the millions. But now in their midst, we have an unusual and mysterious dwarf planet! Yeah, it has been known to us for over 200 years -- but now, maybe we ought to take a closer look . . .? After all . . . its one of those new 'dwarf planets' . . .

Image is everything, at least superficially, and maybe it is the key to attraction. The image of Ceres holds an "out of place-looking" white spot, white enough appearing to be a relatively recent impact excavation into an object that has a substantial layer of water-ice. Otherwise, Ceres wears a tint of peachy rosy almost Mars-y pale orange color.

Without obvious satellites, Ceres's mass is inferred by its perturbation interactions with other asteroids and with planets Earth and Mars.

From these, a mass value of 9.43 x 10^20kg (0.016% of Earth) is computed. This value plugs into Hubble Space Telescope measured dimension values and yields a density that likely means Ceres composition includes a quantity of water-ice.

Actually a large quantity of water-ice, possibly as much as 12% to 20% the amount of water as splashes around in Earth's oceans. (from 1.6 x 10^8 km^3 to 2.55 x 10^8 km^3) That 'might' be more water-ice than is on or under the surface of the planet Mars.

Inferences abound. The argument is made for Ceres that it should have contained enough radioactive atomic species (Aluminum-26) to warm and differentiate its 'core' meaning an odd mix of ice and rocks with a lot of radioactive Aluminum-26 heated Ceres enough to close up the porous accumulations of accretion and any 'water-ice" there-in contained was squeezed out of the core in the process and accumulated as a layer above the core. Yes, I know. The Aluminum-26, with a half-life of 730,000 years +/-, heats the mess and the water now, not ice, forms a surface layer outside the silicate rocky core. Well, that is the theory. The density indicates there is water-ice and the white spot sure looks like a bright reflection from a place there might be a lot of water-ice.

CERES rotates in 9.075 hours. Call the "diameter" 952.4 km. But with that much of a spin, the shape of Ceres if it indeed has water-ice or even water deep under the surface, has to be such that there is a difference between polar and equatorial diameters. Hubble measurements confirm that it is approximately 64 km fatter across its equator than when measured through the poles. No atmosphere known, and there shouldn't be. But with water ice -- there could be frost. It is roughly 1 AU farther away from the Sun than Mars. Cooler too!

Ceres is 2.54 AU from the Sun, with a 4.3 year orbit around the Sun. A mission to visit both Ceres and Vesta has been shelved because of technical and financial problems with doing so now. (The trip is on, and Dawn launched September 27 , 2007.)

Image: Cutaway Drawing of Ceres, Wikipedia:

Ceres with water may be fictional, or speculatively insightful. If the water ice is there it is a certain destination for late this century and in the 2100's if not sooner. If it is an accurate surmise and true, the white spot seen rotating may be a crater excavated into water-ice. It could even mean Ceres was formed somewhere else in the solar system, possibly in the Kuiper Belt. The amount of material covering the ice is not known and it is critical to the evolutionary model of Ceres, and Ceres' origin, because it must explain why all that water is still there or how it has been able to stay there and not effervesce away.

The Late Fred Hoyle remarked at how "reddish" looking the Kuiper Belt objects are, and my initial feelings about the color of Ceres makes me wonder why it is so different from most of the rest of the main belt asteroids. That could be an interesting speculation, suggesting it traveled in from the belt beyond Neptune. If it had the requisite aluminum 26, it would not matter if it was clear out there, it would have differentiated.

The thickness of that "Dusty cover layer" when known, could suggest or determine that a vast reservoir of Water in the form of water-ice has lasted, on a body this close to the Sun a total time of 4.5 billion years. Or with the surface color similar to the Kuiper belt objects and a possible recent immigration to the asteroid belt where, at some 500 miles in diameter, it hasn't been smacked by another large minor planet body -- it could be a recent addition to the "belt." Maybe. Dawn's mission is going to provide an interesting visit.

The Dawn mission, hopefully will tell us. That visit won't be the last one, no sir! Not with that much water . . ! if it proves to be more than a "potential."

All you asteroid belt miners, welcome to Ceres -- this is where you'll get a drink and buy your water! Fresh water!

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No one knows for sure, but Ceres could have more "fresh water" than even Earth. One must realize that the best desalinization processes occur on Earth, and all water on Earth has likely been evaporated and re-condensed several times in the 4.567 billion years since formation. Salts in ocean water have in some cases existed for hundreds of millions of years without precipitating. (Brine.) If Ceres has water ice, is it all frozen? Could there actually be deep liquid water? The surface of Ceres at noon when measured closest to the Sun (Perihelion) was one time 239 K, meaning a little warmer than -40 F. (Practically balmy.)

Image: from Your Hubble Telescope! Don't let special interests take it away from your ownership! Don't let Congress be influenced in de-funding it to give another contractor a skim. Hubble is a national treasure.

For the serious and the curious, the following website is dedicated to Ceres and is an excellent resource. (Best one I have seen)

http://home.comcast.net/~eliws/ceres/