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Hello everyone,
Sweetrixy here with a very important article!
As children, we all learned about the planets, and your teachers in
elementary probably taught you (or are teaching you) some sort of poem or song to
say them all. I can still remember mine! "My very energetic
mother just served us nine pizzas!" If you look
closely at that, you'll see each word starts with the first letter of the planets,
in order.
Well, now we sort of have a problem... THERE IS A NEW
PLANET! (Editor's Note: Sort of...)
The planet is named 2003 VB12 and has unofficially been named
Sedna. Sedna means goddess of the sea for Arctic dwellers. Unfortunately this is not
definitely going to be the name: The International Astronomical Union would have
to approve it first.
My science teacher first told our class about this March 17,
2004. He also said that Sedna was found in 2003, seeing how it
is called 2003 VB12.
Sedna's diameter is estimated at no more than 1,100 miles.
It might be the biggest object in the solar system after
Pluto, but astronomers need more information to know for
sure. Sedna is though to be some 8 billion miles away from
the Sun.
"If you were stand on the surface of Sedna today and you held
a pin at arm's length, you could cover the entire Sun with the
head of that pin. Even the largest backyard telescopes would
have a hard time spotting Sedna from Earth," said Michael
Brown of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena,
Calif.
For now this all the information I have been able to find on
the new planet Sedna. Watch for "Sedna, Part 2" in the coming weeks!.
This has been a special report by sweetrixy! (I have always
wanted to say that... : D)
(My information came from my science teacher
and the official NASA site.)
??
Editor's Note: Great report!?? I first learned about Sedna from a
short piece on a public
radio show, so maybe your teacher has heard more about this than I, but from what
the show said, there's a lot of debate over whether something the size and location of Sedna should really get to be a planet.?? It's wayyy out there, and some
scientists say that if Sedna gets to be a planet, we'll find hundreds of other
large-ish rocks that will be called planets, too!?? We'll have to come up
with entire odes to list out all the planet names!
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