Planet Xena has a moon called Gabrielle

[miriam_e]

(Space & Astronomy News, 3/10/05)
Xena, the possible 10th planet in our solar system, has its own moon, a dim
little satellite called Gabrielle, its discoverers say.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/space/SpaceRepublish_1473136.htm

Comments

Yaay Gabrielle!

[revbob2.livejournal.com]

Tee hee. That's adorable.

And I love the names of the other 2 planets in the Kuiper Belt.

Re: Yaay Gabrielle!

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Heheheh :)
Yeah. Me too. Santa and Easterbunny. Wonderfully nutty.

Those researchers are doing a good job of blowing the cobwebs off science. It follows a recent tradition of naming things like that gene SonicHedgehog and some of the quarks Charm and Beauty. The mathematicians possibly started the trend with the naming of the number 1 followed by 100 zeros as a google (largely forgotten now).

More cool Xena stuff

[revbob2.livejournal.com]

Mike Brown, one of the discoverers, talks about Xena and Gaby and the other Kuiper Belt planets: http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/planetlila/

He says there's absolutely no chance the IAU will keep those names. Drat!

Summary of suitable names for planets, moons, craters, etc.: http://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/append6.html

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Drat indeed!
We want Xena and Gabrielle! [chants]
The IAU are a bunch of stuffy old fogeys. Maybe we can force them to follow common use. For my part I shall refer to the two bodies as Xena and Gabrielle every chance I get. :)