The planets and moons of our Solar System have always attracted and fascinated mankind. On 30th July 2005 NASA announced
the discovery of the 10th
planet in the outlying regions of our Solar System. This planet, which is slightly bigger than Pluto, was discovered by Dr.Mike Brown of the California Institute of Technology, and his collegues, Chad Trujillo, of the Gemini Observatory, Hawaii and David Rabinowitz, of Yale University, Conn. Dr. Brown and his colleagues publicly announced the discovery of Xena, on July 29,2005
The planet was discovered using the Samuel Oschin Telescope at Palomar Observatory near San Diego, California. Dr. Brown and Chad Trujillo had first taken photographs of the new planet on October 31st, 2003.
As per the astronomical estimates, the new planet is twenty per cent larger than Pluto and located about ninety seven times further than the Earth from the Sun. It is temporarily named 2003 UB313 and code named Xena, after the TV warrior princess. This new planet has a moon too, which completes one rotation around the planet in two weeks. This moon nicknamed as Gabrielle, is at least one tenth of the size of Xena. This planet takes 560 years to revolve around the sun.
Xena, the largest Kuiper Belt Object (KBO) was not discovered by astronomers years ago, because it was too far from the plane of the Solar System. Previous observations suggested that this new planet’s
diameter was about 3 percent greater than Pluto. Observations made by Hubble telescope, taken on December9th and10th 2005showed that Xena’s diameter could be about 1,490 miles. Pluto’s diameter is about 1,422 miles.
Xena is perhaps one of the most reflective objects in the Solar System. This reflectivity must be due to the fresh methane frost on the surface. Moving further away from the Sun, the planet’s atmosphere must have got frozen and settled as crust on the surface.