For More Webcasts: www.nasm.si.edu Pluto, Eris, and the Dwarf Planets of the Outer Solar System Presenter: Mike Brown Tuesday, March 20, 2007 The Kuiper Belt is a mysterious region beyond Neptune and stretching more than four billion miles from the Sun. Using powerful telescopes, scientists are scouring the Belt and beyond, finding hundreds of small frigid objects such as Eris, which is larger than Pluto and takes 560 years to orbit the Sun; and smaller Sedna, with an elliptical orbit that takes more than 10000 years to complete. Join Mike Brown as he describes the hunt for these ancient and elusive worlds. Mike Brown is Professor of Planetary Astronomy at the California Institute of Technology and the discoverer, along with colleagues, of Eris (formerly 2003 UB313), Sedna, and other distant bodies. The 2007 Exploring Space Lectures, Journey Through the Outer Solar System, will feature four world-class scholars discussing current missions to the distant realm of the gas giants, the icy Kuiper Belt, and beyond. For More Webcasts: www.nasm.si.edu
25 Responses
April 5th, 2011 at 4:22 am
Omfg, that was sooo boring.
April 5th, 2011 at 4:22 am
ITS BILL GATES!
April 5th, 2011 at 4:22 am
@dreamsNdemise Eeeh… eheh… EEEEEEH, EH; EH; EH… xD xD xD
April 5th, 2011 at 4:22 am
“Too much of a hassle?”
Nonsense.
April 5th, 2011 at 4:22 am
@MrRdfleuryjr01 It is a huge hassle. In his book, he describes how it takes at least 20 minutes for each plate, and 10 minutes to just set it up.
April 5th, 2011 at 4:22 am
why not just continue using photographic plates?
April 5th, 2011 at 4:22 am
Pluto, Pluto, Who art thou Pluto??
April 5th, 2011 at 4:22 am
Don’t know if anyone asked in the video, but how did all the objects in the kyper belt begin to orbit our sun/our solar system? He said that Sedna was once bigger and that it spewed off objects that are now orbiting the sun. Is that a reasonable explaination for the rest of the kyper belt objects?
This sort of reminds of when they found Jupiter’s rings. It just lets you know that there’s still a whole lot more we don’t know and have yet to find about our solar system let alone the universe.
April 5th, 2011 at 4:22 am
He sounds like Kermit the Frog.
April 5th, 2011 at 4:22 am
what is planet x
April 5th, 2011 at 4:22 am
this is true
April 5th, 2011 at 4:22 am
Oh and Eris is not bigger than Pluto.
h**p://*space*com/scienceastronomy/eris-smaller-than-pluto-101109*html
April 5th, 2011 at 4:22 am
It still pisses me off that a big ball of gas can be called a planet, but something like Pluto can’t be. The rules for what has to be a planet is silly. What happened to the term rogue planet, are those things no longer planets? Earth has metro showers a lot, clearly we haven’t cleared out our area of space either, so by their own ruling, Earth isn’t a planet. “To many of them’ that’s like saying there’s to many forms of life on Earth so we’ll just stop calling new things life, welcome sub life.
April 5th, 2011 at 4:22 am
this was very educational, I could watch his presentations for hours!
April 5th, 2011 at 4:22 am
cracking channel subbed…
thanks.
April 5th, 2011 at 4:22 am
poor pluto…….pluto is a planet in my eyes.
April 5th, 2011 at 4:22 am
10,000 IAU Members could hav Voted on Pluto only 424 Voted So the Vote Stink”s!
April 5th, 2011 at 4:22 am
I think they should all be called planetoids. A 8 planet model would be like having an 8 country world, simply because you only wanna remember the biggest. It`s amazing though, how much more complex the solar system is than the model that was taught to us in school.
April 5th, 2011 at 4:22 am
Still Pluto does not fit in to the category he does not belong to. Stupid definition forced by authority. Instead creating new class for the Pluto they put him in to the one they had at hand. Shame.
April 5th, 2011 at 4:22 am
why blame neptune? if they keep going they will dicover more of em and it will look like an atom.
we are just an atom among thounds, on a lagre string of vibration among others.
now tell me we are the only thing in the whole galaxy, that lives….sad itl take proberly 1000s of years for us to move out past plutos ect, thats if the planet is still here lol…(wish i was imortal =-[ )
April 5th, 2011 at 4:22 am
Cosmic rays must be fast-moving things on camera?
Mike Brown is a great astronomer!
April 5th, 2011 at 4:22 am
Of course, his alien example works now, however, earlier in my life Pluto was orbiting inside Neptune and so our alien friends might well have considered Pluto to be a something special.
April 5th, 2011 at 4:22 am
he looks like Bill Gates
April 5th, 2011 at 4:22 am
@Omnignosis well no because the sun needs crushing mass to crush itself into ignition. All those atoms and getting pushed together. They are vibrating in smaller and smaller spaces so they get faster and faster and so as you get soooo much energy in such a small space it brings the atoms into ignition speeds when they colide and bang, Fussion starts. The sun expanding will not add the mass that jupiter needs to make this happen, but it will heat it more.
April 5th, 2011 at 4:22 am
@gmanzeroalpha
Will the Sun ignite Jupiter when is gets older and swells?