Comments on Mike Brown's Planets: Haumea

The primary planets in the Solar System are: Mercu...

2011-11-11T06:06:57.173-08:00

The primary planets in the Solar System are: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Vesta, Juno, Ceres, Pallas, Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus.

ATAECINA!

2011-05-31T12:25:23.903-07:00

ATAECINA!

If Haumea had an icy crust when struck by a disfig...

2010-10-18T20:43:40.750-07:00

If Haumea had an icy crust when struck by a disfiguring KBO, then how does a presumably solidified rock mantle become elongated (ellipsis)? Was Haumea's mantle molten rock when struck by the passing KBO and if so, how can ice form on molten lava-like rock?

Presumably, a comet or other KBO struck Haumea when it had a thick crust of ice, like Pluto, so my question is "was Haumea's mantle solid (solidified rock as it is today) or was it molten, like a blob of lava?

If the latter is true, then where did all that ice come from? Was the mantle molten rock and just the outer portion, just under the icy crust, solidified and cold enough to keep the ice from melting?

It was said that ice debris (presumably from Haumea's pre-cataclysmic impact or graze by another KBO), was found in the area around Haumea, why has it not been tugged back to Haumea via its gravitational pull?

George Smith

@George: Be sure to read "Snow white needs a ...

2010-10-18T20:14:42.183-07:00

@George: Be sure to read "Snow white needs a bailout" somewhere around this blog. It is all about Snow White = 2007 OR10.

We just got some fabulous data on 2007 OR10 but haven't fully digested it yet. Stay tuned for answers. I hope.

Dear Mr. Brown: What do we know about 2007 OR10 (...

2010-10-18T20:07:36.309-07:00

Dear Mr. Brown:

What do we know about 2007 OR10 (225088)? There appears to be differences in surface composition with some planets (Makemake and Sedna), that may appear reddish, like Mars, but most others, except Haumea, appear to be dirty snowballs or what I like to call them, "spacebergs." Does 2007 OR10 have any distinguishing features or does it look like most KBOs?

Any names for this one, we like names? The codes you use are too difficult to remember and are too cold (pun intended).

George Smith

If Haumea was half rock (core) and half icy mantle...

2010-10-18T19:12:41.222-07:00

If Haumea was half rock (core) and half icy mantle, how large was the original planet before being struck by a comet or other KBO passing recklessly through the neighborhood? It would have been quite a bit larger than Pluto and Eris; but even so, it is still impressive.

Haumea would have been the largest of the known KBO planets, although it may not have any satellites.

Now we know what a rocky core looks like. It appears to be to massive to shatter by just any KBO.

What do you think happened to the KBO that struck Haumea, i.e. did it shatter into tiny shards and scatter into the KB or was it incorporated into Haumea? Did the icy mantle absorb all of the impact or is there evidence (crater, cracks, foreign material etc.) on Haumea, of an impact?

George Smith

Mike, Congrats most of all on your acceptance...

2010-09-22T04:35:50.966-07:00

Mike,
Congrats most of all on your acceptance of the name that is chosen, Haumea is beautiful and poetically prophetic, or I should say historical of it's roots beyond your wildest imagination. I like it. Acceptance is the key to life anyway, and sounds like either way you know that. Two things, why the co founding with Chad and I didn't see published it's size. Also you mentioned where it originated, can you tell me where that is more precisely and if you know that you should be able to say when it took place? was it in the ball park of 9000 years ago? I guess that is a bit more than two ?'s, thanks john Bnonymous

(55565) 2002 AW197 uses the art of the stratagem i...

2009-12-30T06:41:14.940-08:00

(55565) 2002 AW197 uses the art of the stratagem in problem-solving, like the strategic therapy used by Prot with Howie in the movie "K-pax" (2001). Wich will be its official name?

1979 = "The 12th Planet" (Harper Books) ...

2009-12-23T15:18:38.229-08:00

1979 = "The 12th Planet" (Harper Books) - Zacharia Sitchin

2003 = SEDNA is discovered - Mike Brown "You"

Based on both published observations, which happens to be 24 years apart, one using sumerian tablets (Sitchin), one using modern science and technology (Brown), both suggest a planet that share identical apogees, but different perigees.

Sithcin claims its the Sumerian homeworld of the Anuunaki or NIBIRU????....

We classify it as a lower class planetoid and its named SEDNA...

It may be speculation on my part and I do apologize in that respect, but the similarities "appear" strikingly obvious and I believe this is the same Planet you both are referring to...

Thanks Mike for all the hard work...

Ahh, thanks. While it doesn't explain it intui...

2009-12-17T03:36:47.136-08:00

Ahh, thanks. While it doesn't explain it intuitively you're at least the first to tell me it should. Would showing it more clearly involve complex mathematics (I'm still in the first year of my degree, so I might not be ready for that level of maths yet!) or is there a physical reason you can explain in plain English, or an empirical example you can come up with? Besides Haumea itself, of course.

Anon -- Here's how it works. No spin, you get ...

2009-12-15T10:37:01.019-08:00

Anon --
Here's how it works. No spin, you get a sphere. A little spin, you get bulges (kind of like a flying saucer, or, as you say, squashed [European] football). Spin more, though and something funny happens. Sadly, this is non intuitive. I will have to ponder to see if I can come up with a good demonstration. When you spin past a certain limit, the flying saucer shape is no longer stable and one long axis grows while one long axis shrinks. At this point you have a "Jacobi ellipsoid" which is a 3D ellipse where all three axes are different sizes.

Does that help? Uhhhh. Probably not. But I will ponder to see if I can do better.

Mike

Hi Mike, I'm a little confused about somethin...

2009-12-14T21:09:36.724-08:00

Hi Mike,

I'm a little confused about something. Why is Haumea shaped like an American football? (I live in England, so the other planets would be "football" shaped to me, although I am, ironically, part Spanish. :P) All the explanations I've heard are about Haumea's extremely rapid rotation - surely this would cause it to "bulge" out at the equator and make it more like a squashed British football than an American one? Why is Haumea long in one dimension and flattened in two, instead of being long in two and flattened in one?

The particular story of a discovery of a new objec...

2009-09-27T11:24:13.769-07:00

The particular story of a discovery of a new object is always meaningful. In the case of Haumea was very helpful to understand its meaning.

Dr Brown, As a follow-up to my two messages above...

2009-04-18T14:02:00.000-07:00

Dr Brown,

As a follow-up to my two messages above from last September, I would like to present you with both Haumea and Makemake:

http://www.perseus.gr/Astro-Planet-Dwarfs-Haumea.htm
http://www.perseus.gr/Astro-Planet-Dwarfs-Makemake.htm

I will obtain a follow pair of images a week after these two results were taken so that there will be a nice illustration of the very slow apparent movement of these two dwarf planets.

Best wishes from Greece.

Anthony.

Congratulations on the naming victory. I'm researc...

2009-04-17T05:32:00.000-07:00

Congratulations on the naming victory. I'm researching Haumea for my Earth and Space Science class and even though the controversy is unfortunate perhaps it will make my classmates pay better attention. I enjoy finding out more about the 5th dwarf planet with every step and I'm grateful that you brought so much wonderful information about it to light!

Guillermo --
I have indeed read that posting be...

2009-03-13T16:40:00.000-07:00

Guillermo --
I have indeed read that posting before. Sadly, it is impossible to know whether to believe it or not. The Spanish team were not particularly forthcoming until finally confronted with the facts. They then tell a story that involves some pretty astounding coincidences and makes them out to be the victims. Is their story impossible? No. That's why I will never be certain what really happened. I think, to be fair, no one will ever know for certain, accept for the Spanish team themselves.

Mike

Dear Sir,

Your post accuses several tim...

2009-03-13T15:43:00.000-07:00

Dear Sir,

Your post accuses several times the Spanish team of prevarication. You said:

"To be fair, though, I don’t think there is any way to ever know the full extent of the truth, except on the off chance that someone on the Spanish team eventually spills the beans about what really happened. I keep waiting"

Wait no more Dr Brown, just get someone to help you with the translation of the Spanish team's version of the events (posted on 26th Sept 2008):

http://www.infoastro.com/200809/26ataecina-haumea.html

If you do not recognize this as "spills the beans about what really happened" then maybe you are only waiting to hear that you are right.

Best Regards,

Dr G Rein

PD: The article explaining the Spanish team's version finishes with the words: "el pez grande se come al chico" (the big fish eats the small one). Either referring to CV, budget, lobbying or ego, it gives us all something to think about.

Hello, Mike :)

As a fellow scoopee, I think...

2009-02-17T16:34:00.000-08:00

Hello, Mike :)

As a fellow scoopee, I think this article:

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/04feb_greencomet.htm

from NASA displays the proper attitude towards discovery priority. I think this excellently written article is worth posting in full here:

"February 4, 2009: In 1996, a 7-year-old boy in China bent over the eyepiece of a small telescope and saw something that would change his life--a comet of flamboyant beauty, bright and puffy with an active tail. At first he thought he himself had discovered it, but no, he learned, two men named "Hale" and "Bopp" had beat him to it. Mastering his disappointment, young Quanzhi Ye resolved to find his own comet one day.

And one day, he did.

Fast forward to a summer afternoon in July 2007. Ye, now 19 years old and a student of meteorology at China's Sun Yat-sen University, bent over his desk to stare at a black-and-white star field. The photo was taken nights before by Taiwanese astronomer Chi Sheng Lin on "sky patrol" at the Lulin Observatory. Ye's finger moved from point to point--and stopped. One of the stars was not a star, it was a comet, and this time Ye saw it first.

Comet Lulin, named after the observatory in Taiwan where the discovery-photo was taken, is now approaching Earth. "It is a green beauty that could become visible to the naked eye any day now," says Ye."

It's worth following the link to this article if for nothing else but the beautiful photo of the comet taken by amateur astronomer Jack Newton. The comet displays a soft green halo about the size of Jupiter; it has a discernable shape, sort of an ellipsoid. This cloud is of course very thin and the glow comes from cyanogen and diatomic carbon, C2.

My stepfather was stationed in Taiwan during the Cold War when I was about Lilah's age. The Communists shelled the tiny islands of Quemoy and Matsu, and the ominus rumble of Ivy Mike shook the South Pacific and the world.

I think we live in a saner world:

"Ye notes that Comet Lulin is remarkable not only for its rare beauty, but also for its rare manner of discovery. "This is a 'comet of collaboration' between Taiwanese and Chinese astronomers," he says. "The discovery could not have been made without a contribution from both sides of the Strait that separates our countries. Chi Sheng Lin and other members of the Lulin Observatory staff enabled me to get the images I wanted, while I analyzed the data and found the comet."

Somewhere this month, Ye imagines, another youngster will bend over an eyepiece, see Comet Lulin, and feel the same thrill he did gazing at Comet Hale-Bopp in 1996. And who knows where that might lead...?

"I hope that my experience might inspire other young people to pursue the same starry dreams as myself," says Ye."

:)

-Mike Emmert

Hello, Mike :)

As a fellow scoopee, I think...

2009-02-17T16:33:00.000-08:00

Further Comment... stealing the work of others in ...

2008-12-19T07:39:00.000-08:00

Further Comment... stealing the work of others in order to beat them to announcing new work is not confined to astronomy or science. I am a Theologian and when doing work for my PhD I was obliged to give a seminar on my work-in-progress. Students and staffers attended the seminar. One nice gent picked up on my research and mentioned to one of his students (studying at a lower degree level but a well known friend of mine) that she might follow a certain line of reasoning in one of her papers, giving her my new views that were then unpublished work-in-progress. She published and grabbed the fame. Hmm, sounds familiar.... also, to rub salt into the wound, she is employed, I am not - no comparable published "new" work!! They ordained her into Ministry.

Congratulations to Mike Brown and his team and to ...

2008-12-19T07:26:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to Mike Brown and his team and to the imaginative Spanish that tailed in on Brown's observations. The list of newly known planets is growing for the Solar System, as skill and technology increase. Thanks to the plain use of English, Iris, Haumea, etc are still 'planets' and since we no longer think of the big 8 in the same way as the original name 'planet' described them as 'wanderers' perhaps we can accept that 'planet' is fine for English usage and in places where Germaic forms of compound nouns like 'dwarfplanet' are not used (red ducks are still ducks!). The term 'plutoid' seems ok and avoids the problems associated with the term 'pluton' that was already in use by geologists and geophysicists in another scientific context. Pass that on to the IAC with my slap on the wriost for the UGS in supporting te Spanish bagging of the first-sighting.

Albert:
I suppose there is no way to convince y...

2008-11-26T20:40:00.000-08:00

Albert:
I suppose there is no way to convince you otherwise, but I try very hard to be honest about which parts of this story I know to be true, and which parts of this story I have to guess about. You can, if you wish, simply dismiss it all by declaring me a liar and there is not much I can do about it, but I think that if you open mindedly examine even just the facts that everyone agrees to you would likely find that I am being pretty straightforward about everything.

I found the situation both personally and professionally painful, and I really really hate having to be confrontational to people who are supposed to be colleagues. But, in the end, I hate what seems to me to have likely been fraud even more.

I know that these days there is no particularly reason to believe anything that anyone says or posts, so I can't imagine why you would ever change your mind, but I would encourage you to consider, for just a minute, that perhaps I am not a liar, and what the implications might be.

Mike

Mr. Brown is a liar. He is decided to obtain poste...

2008-11-26T17:11:00.000-08:00

Mr. Brown is a liar. He is decided to obtain posterity for itself and for the states united, nor that is cheating. I say that is a liar for not saying things worse, since well he knows that the true name of the dwarf planet should be Ataecina, as it proposed for the Spanish Team. And if it doesn't worry, I'm not a displeased Spanish, I'm a conscious man that there are also liars in the astronomy.

It'sreat the 2003 EL61 has a proper name.
<...

2008-10-09T15:00:00.000-07:00

It'sreat the 2003 EL61 has a proper name.

Whilst I get the gist of dwarf planethood being an object massive enough to form a spheroid, does mass also play a part?

Take Mercury, Ganymede, Titan & Callisto. Those four are almost identical in size & all four are spherical. Yet Mercury is in heliocentric orbit & has approx twice the mass of Ganymede. Ganymede & Callisto are in Jovecentric orbit & Titan in a Kronecentric one. If lets say all four were in heliocentirc orbit, would all four be considered major planets, or would Mercury be considered the only one of that size due its far greater mass owing to the largwe density of Iron & rock as opposed to rock & ice for the others (though Ganymede may have a dual layered metal core like the Earth)?

I suspect there will be similar anomilies in the KB population. Eris is 27% more massive than Pluto, yet 5% larger (evidence that Eris is denser), Haumea appears to be dense, yet Quaoar appears to be icy?

Andrew Brown.

2008-10-04T19:34:00.000-07:00

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

Comments on Mike Brown's Planets: Haumea

The primary planets in the Solar System are: Mercu...

ATAECINA!

If Haumea had an icy crust when struck by a disfig...

@George: Be sure to read "Snow white needs a ...

Dear Mr. Brown: What do we know about 2007 OR10 (...

If Haumea was half rock (core) and half icy mantle...

Mike, Congrats most of all on your acceptance...

(55565) 2002 AW197 uses the art of the stratagem i...

1979 = "The 12th Planet" (Harper Books) ...

Ahh, thanks. While it doesn't explain it intui...

Anon -- Here's how it works. No spin, you get ...

Hi Mike, I'm a little confused about somethin...

The particular story of a discovery of a new objec...

Dr Brown, As a follow-up to my two messages above...

Congratulations on the naming victory. I'm researc...

Guillermo --I have indeed read that posting be...

Dear Sir,Your post accuses several tim...

Hello, Mike :)As a fellow scoopee, I think...

Hello, Mike :)As a fellow scoopee, I think...

Further Comment... stealing the work of others in ...

Congratulations to Mike Brown and his team and to ...

Albert:I suppose there is no way to convince y...

Mr. Brown is a liar. He is decided to obtain poste...

It'sreat the 2003 EL61 has a proper name.<...

Guillermo --
I have indeed read that posting be...

Dear Sir,

Your post accuses several tim...

Hello, Mike :)

As a fellow scoopee, I think...

Hello, Mike :)

As a fellow scoopee, I think...

Albert:
I suppose there is no way to convince y...

It'sreat the 2003 EL61 has a proper name.
<...