I think Quaoar might replace Extopalopaketl as the name I’m going to give to my first-born. Wouldn’t you love to be named after a planetoid? No? Well, it’s better than Dweezil.
A new planetoid has been found that’s even further than Quaoar. To paraphrase the report:
A frigid, planet-like body about three-quarters the size of Pluto is thought to be the most distant object known in our solar system, NASA said Monday. The shiny, reddish object is located three times farther away than our furthest planet. Astronomers said the sun appears so small from that distance that you could completely block it out with the head of a pin. The object has been unofficially named Sedna after the Inuit goddess credited in tribal myths with creating the sea creatures of the Arctic. The formal designation for Sedna is 2003VB12.
Sedna: Coolest Place in the Solar System. I would have called it Vogon. Or hey, could we have pulled out Vulcan again?
There are two cool things about this post:
- There’s already an entry about this planetoid in Wikipedia. Instant information! The Uncle Ben’s of encyclopaedias.
- While trying to find a Wiki entry for Dweezil Zappa I discovered that, coincidentally, there is an asteroid named after his father called (3834) Zappafrank. I can’t find out anything about this guy that isn’t cool. What we need now is a Jay-Zappa remix. They did it with Weezer, why not the Great One? (Cheers, Richard.)
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