Where I've been lately

We had a great trip to Circle Lake. Beautiful weather. It was my fourth time to the lake and I believe this was the first time it was warm enough to go swimming (for me, at least).

My grandfather was the first one to the lake on Friday, but I got there second. . .

I took over 450 photos. Don't look at me like that. I needed something to keep me busy while (almost) everyone else was talking botany Latin.

So here's a picture from Saturday's sunrise:

That's Mt Stuart. It dominates the horizon.

And here's a little lake that's not on the map. It's just below the saddle between Circle and Venus.

Yes, I went for a swim.

How about the moons?

Now that the IAU has drawn a line between planets and dwarf planets, and another between dwarf planets and small solar system bodies, it's time to draw a line between major and minor moons. I mean, take a look at Jupiter. Do you really want to memorize every single one of its 63 named moons? I think not. Therefore there must be a line drawn.

So let's use the same line as the one between dwarf planets and SSSBs: spheroidness. Which puts the divider down in the 4x10¹⁹ kg range, same as for dwarf planets.

Here's a list of planets (and dwarf planets which have major moons) and their major moons:

Mercury
Venus
Earth
.....Moon
Mars
Jupiter
.....Io
.....Europa
.....Ganymede
.....Callisto
Saturn
.....Mimas
.....Enceladus
.....Tethys
.....Dione
.....Rhea
.....Titan
.....Iapteus
Uranus
.....Miranda
.....Ariel
.....Umbriel
.....Titania
.....Oberon
Neptune
.....Triton
Pluto
.....Charon
"Santa"
....."Rudolph" (maybe)
"Xena"
....."Gabrielle" (maybe)

And that's all you need to know.

In Memorium

In commemoration of Pluto's demotion from the ranks of planets, I purchased a placemat today.



Now that it's out-of-date, its price is going to skyrocket, right?

I suppose the good thing about all this is that Pluto is no longer an oddball. It has plenty of friends just like it: Xena, Santa, Ixion, Quaoar, and the rest.

I think kids should first learn the four terrestrial planets and the four gas giants, then learn the four largest asteroids and the four largest trans-Neptunian objects, then maybe differentiate between plutinos and cubewanos and Scattered Disk Objects and learn the four largest of each of those.

From Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars; Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. . .
to Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars; Vesta, Ceres, Pallas, Hygiea; Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune; Pluto, "Santa", "Easterbunny", "Xena". . .
to Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars; Vesta, Ceres, Pallas, Hygiea; Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune; Pluto, Orcus, Ixion, Huya; UX₂₅, "Santa", Quaoar, "Easterbunny"; TC₃₀₂, "Buffy", "Xena", Sedna. . .
to. . .

And yes, that Buffy.

One of Those Days

Have you ever had a day when you dropped an unopened, unshook can of pop and it landed on the floor in such a way that it broke open and sprayed soda all over you and your chair and your desk and your cubicle and your cabinets and the wall behind you and then dumped all but a fluid ounce into the carpet?

Yeah, well neither had I till today.

At least it was diet, so not so sticky.

This weekend

Tomorrow I shall go here:


And then on Saturday, perhaps I'll go up there:


Sunday, I guess I'll come back to here:

How many Earth years is that?

Today is the sixteenth anniversary of the landing of Viking 1 on Mars. In Martian years, of course.

Happy birthday, Viking 1!



It's dead now, don't you know? Ah, but those were the days. . .

The Race is going to begin soon.

I looked through all the teams on the new Amazing Race season before realizing something about the group shot on the main page:



I recognized the boat in the background. And then the Washington Mutual Building. And the whole rest of the skyline.

Yup, that's Seattle!

They start the race over in West Seattle, apparently. "Your first task will be to drive one of the marked cars due south ten miles to the airport. Just follow the planes overhead. Good luck."

I wonder if they come back at the end?

And why must I never see them when they're in town?

IAU Announces Tomorrow Morning

So, let's call it eight planets, okay?

Mercury
Venus
Earth
Mars
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune

And some other smaller stuff like asteroids, planetoids, centaurs, trans-Neptunian objects, Kuiper-belt objects, and other names that overlap. You can call these minor planets or dwarf planets or whatever you like. That's where these go:

Vesta
Ceres
Pallas
Hygiea
Pluto
Orcus
Ixion
Varuna
TX₃₀₀
"Santa"
Quaoar
"Easterbunny"
AW₁₉₇
"Xena"
Sedna

And anything that orbits one of the above categories, we'll call a moon or a satellite. Unless it's like really really close in size. And we haven't found any of those yet. Thus go:

Moon
Io
Europa
Ganymede
Callisto
Titan
Triton
Charon
"Gabrielle"

Back to the status quo, in other words. Except Pluto has finally been reunited with its heretofore unknown compatriots.

Decor

It is now time to put up your Halloween decorations. Or I suppose you can wait till tomorrow or Friday.

And don't forget to remove your Lammas decorations. Those are so three weeks ago.

Can o' Worms

As I'm sure you all know, the sixteen most massive objects in the solar system are:

Sun
Jupiter
Saturn
Neptune
Uranus
Earth
Venus
Mars
Mercury
Ganymede
Titan
Callisto
Io
Moon
Europa
Triton

"Xena" probably comes next, but its mass hasn't been pinned down yet. And then Pluto. And then "Santa" and "Easterbunny," most likely, followed by Titania, Oberon, and Sedna.

Note that I haven't said Charon or Ceres yet, which are the two objects the IAU listed right beside "Xena" in their definitely-planets-if-we-make-this-rule declaration. In fact, Charon is about half the mass of Sedna, and Ceres is less than a third the mass of Sedna. So why aren't Sedna, "Santa," and "Easterbunny" on the definitely-planets-if-we-make-this-rule list?

But then we run into another problem with the IAU's planet definition. They also state that the object should be almost spherical. This leaves off all but a couple asteriods (Ceres and Vesta). All asteroids ranked third and below are irregularly shaped.

But remember "Santa"? It's next in line behind Pluto and almost three times as massive as Charon (over four times as big as Ceres). But it's irregularly shaped. It's almost 2000 km long by less than 1000 wide. So is it a planet? Would the IAU really leave it off the list just because it's oblong?

. . . What would it be like to stand on such a planetoid as "Santa"? It would be as if the entire world were two huge mountains, with only a few level locations on the entire surface. At the top of the mountains (the ends of the long axis), the gravity would be 0.29 m/s². At the bottom of the valley (the ends of the shortest axis), the gravity would be 1.1 m/s². (Earth surface gravity is 9.8 m/s².) You'd weigh over three times as much at the bottom than at the top! In fact, gravity at the low point would be almost twice as much as on Pluto, a more massive planet. Weird, huh?

Hm. "Santa" is oblong because it rotates so fast, they say. Its rotational period is 3.915 hours. Would you even be able to stand on top one of the mountains if it is spinning so fast? What's the escape velocity? 0.84 km/s. And at the top of the mountain, you'd be going 0.43 km/s standing still. So. . . you'd have to travel an extra 1452 km/h. Oh good.

sauce

I just finished off another bottle of Sriracha chili pepper sauce. It's been at my office desk the whole time and I think it took most of a year to go through. So it's not as if I'm chugging the stuff!

I'll have to go grocery shopping tonight...

Astronomology

We all know that certain planets rule certain zodiac signs. But now that we have new planets, this has to be rethought. In the past, Saturn has lost Aquarius to Uranus, Jupiter has lost Pisces to Neptune, and Mars has lost Scorpio to Pluto.

Of the three new planets (Ceres, Charon, and 2003 UB₃₁₃ "Xena"), Charon would have no astrological effect, as the astrological Pluto is already Pluto + Charon. Ceres has been claimed to rule a variety of signs, and of those, Virgo makes the most sense -- taking it from Mercury, which still has Gemini.

2003 UB₃₁₃ "Xena" would then have to take either Taurus or Libra from Venus (the only planet with two signs remaining). And since every other new planet has taken the second sign of an old planet, Venus gets to keep Taurus and 2003 UB₃₁₃ "Xena" gets Libra.

If a larger Kuiper Belt Object is discovered, I'd say it just takes Libra from 2003 UB₃₁₃ "Xena". Those planets take hundreds of years to orbit the sun, anyway, so they're not much fun.

Actually, 2003 UB₃₁₃ "Xena" is a rather unusual Kuiper Belt Object (so far). Pluto is the largest of the plutinos (which all have a 2:3 resonance with Neptune). 2005 FY₉ "Easterbunny" is the largest of the classic KBOs (or cubewanos), which don't get so close to Neptune. 2003 UB₃₁₃ "Xena" is further out still, with a very eccentric orbit (but not as far out or eccentric as Sedna -- but Sedna is smaller). So maybe 2005 FY₉ "Easterbunny" should be tracked as a ruler of a zodiac sign, as the representative of the major category of KBOs.

Or not.

So here's the list:

Aries........Mars
Taurus.......Venus
Gemini.......Mercury
Cancer.......Moon
Leo..........Sun
Virgo........Ceres
Libra........2003 UB₃₁₃ "Xena" or 2005 FY₉ "Easterbunny"
Scorpio......Pluto
Sagittarius..Jupiter
Capricorn....Saturn
Aquarius.....Uranus
Pisces.......Neptune

got chocolate?

Under my authority as King of Naraka, I hereby declare today and every Monday hereafter to be National Chocolate Day.

Long live chocolate! Yum...