Comments on Mike Brown's Planets: Haumea

(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) - Zacharia...

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 intuitive...

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 a sp...

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 something. W...

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 before...

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 times the Span...

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 this ar...

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 this ar...

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 you o...

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.Whilst I ...

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.

I had proposed a neutral name for Haumea but it wa...

2008-09-22T23:29:00.000-07:00

I had proposed a neutral name for Haumea but it wasn't used. I never turned a telescope on the object. But I did use GravitySimulator on it. I believe it's the lost moon of Triton so I proposed the name "Rhode", who in Greek mythology was the sister of Triton and the godess of the Island of Rhodes (think "The Colosus of Rhodes). This was ignored, of course, but that's OK. I cheerfully accept the name Haumea (actually it's pretty good)and gleefully accept the plutoing of Pluto. I think Pluto, Triton, Haumea, and Eris aren't planets, they belong in an even more elite club - surviving Lagrangoids formed in an L4 or L5 point.

I have thought for some time that Triton must have had a lost moon or it could not be captured into it's backwards orbit around Neptune. I set up simulations with binaries consisting of two Triton masses orbiting at various distances (12,000 - 50,000 km)flying past Neptune at a distance similar to Triton's orbit today (it was kind of hard to aim. Sometimes one would be captured. It would do this by transferring momentum to the other member of the pair which would then be propelled away; a gravity slingshot. This is capable of propelling the departing object about as far as (sometimes more than) the distance of Eris. At that point I thought maybe Eris was the lost moon of Triton.

After a few simulations, there was only one object after the flyby. I said, "where is the other one?" But checking the mass of the object showed it was twice the mass of Triton. By that time I was beginning to learn the simulator. Practice makes perfect in everything. I set up a standardized start for the simulations and saved it. But I added a few kilometers separation between the two simulated Tritons.

Observation had showed me what to look for, and that was the angle formed by the centers of mass of Neptune and the two Tritons at closest approach. If at that point they form a straight line, you get maximum launch velocity for the escaping object. However, if the three objects form a right angle, in other words one Triton follows behind the other, then apparently Neptune cancels their rotation with repect to each other. There is no centrifugal force to counter the two Tritons' gravitational pull and they collide.

By this time I had noticed the similarites in the four objects. Pluto and Eris are the same size. Triton is the mass of Pluto plus the combined mass of Uranus's major moons. Haumea has apparently been stripped of it's ices. It is a little smaller than the stripped core of Pluto so apparently it might have lost some stone, too. The "Iron Dwarf"...I like it!

I got scooped on this by Craig Agnor and Douglas Hamilton, who got the simulations done and published in a peer reviewed journal and get credit for the idea. I was expecting this and congradulate Agnor and Hamilton on a job well done. They did postulate a moon kind of like Charon to carry away the excess angular momentum to get into orbit and I wasn't able to get around to how large the mass must be to effect capture, I simply assumed that binaries formed in the Sun/Neptune Lagrange points L4 and L5.

Mike, you should take a good humor at getting scooped. Now, Ortiz's discovery photo undeniably exists. Marsden published a how-to for comet hunters in Sky & Telescope several years ago and he said that the first thing you were supposed to do is see if it has been discovered by somebody else. Ortiz just got a little creative, that's all. If he wanted to look at your logs, how would he know to do that unless he had discovered it himself? He might have thought it was a nova or something when he first looked at it and put it aside when he couldn't find it again. Somewhere in the back of his mind is, "look for news from that part of the sky". All this is a legitimate part of the discovery process.

Incidentally, I looked at Ortiz's observing logs. He was at the telescope that night, making a "calibration run".

The rules for discovery credit were set up for amateur astronomers, since historically it is they who have discovered the most comets. Comet hunting is a horserace to see who gets a coherent report in first. Most comets have two names. They decided not to do that with Plutoids. But they must put, for posterity, tha name of the winner of the horserace, and that was Ortiz.

Cheers :)

Dr Brown,The ephemeris service at JPL was very hel...

2008-09-21T04:43:00.000-07:00

Dr Brown,

The ephemeris service at JPL was very helpful. I will send email when I have results.

Thank you.

Anthony Ayiomamitis.

Dr Brown,Many congrats on your latest discovery!I ...

2008-09-21T03:53:00.000-07:00

Dr Brown,

Many congrats on your latest discovery!

I am an astrophotographer based in Athens, Greece and I would like to image our fifth dwarf planet. However, I have been unsuccessful in locating the J2000 coordinates for Haumea.

Are the coordinates for Haumea now public record or are they still classified? If the former, I would be grateful a lead in this regard.

Thank you and congrats once again!

Anthony Ayiomamitis
Athens, Greece
(http://www.perseus.gr)

Mike, why the IAU-CSBN don't choose a neutral name...

2008-09-20T12:32:00.000-07:00

Mike, why the IAU-CSBN don't choose a neutral name for 2003EL61 neither Ataecina nor Haumea?

Speaking of elongated spheroids what is the latest...

2008-09-20T10:23:00.000-07:00

Speaking of elongated spheroids what is the latest word on Varuna (Source: Jewitt and Sheppard 2002)? Any reason to still suspect that it is also a triaxial ellipsoid with a rapid rotation peroid? Or is it more likely to be a contact binary due to the smaller size?
-- Kevin Heider

Hi, do you remember what time it was on Dec 28 200...

2008-09-20T07:07:00.000-07:00

Hi, do you remember what time it was on Dec 28 2004 when you discovered Haumea?

Without space missions it is almost impossible to ...

2008-09-20T03:51:00.000-07:00

Without space missions it is almost impossible to certify 100% the hydrostatic equilibrium but one can get a fair assessment from size and mass.
The uncertainties on size for most candidates to dwarfplanethood remain huge though. It would be great if more star occultations could be studied (like the occultation by Pluto Mike Brown has participated to - see "Occult Sciences" on this blog). For Varuna-sized or 2004XR190-sized objects, astrometry will be crucial though to be able to predict where the occultation spot will pass on Earth.
Perhaps when astrometry improves (e.g. with Gaia mission), astronomers/planetologists may carry out more star campaigns occultation on 500-1000km sized objects.

I'm a bit surprised that this object received dwar...

2008-09-19T22:53:00.000-07:00

I'm a bit surprised that this object received dwarf planet designation due to its odd shape. How can we be sure it is in hydrostatic equilibrium? Being in a state of hydrostatic equilibrium is a requirement for an object to be designated a dwarf planet. Was this designation premature?