Maple~

Hmm... didn't really see any news on the new found star. Actually, its not a star... its a planetoid. Hmm... peeps who wanna know more about this planetoid... continue reading. I am summarizing what NASA send me.

Sedna (named after the Inuit goddess of the sea, more commonly known as 2003 VB12 by astronomer) was announced as the coldest and most distant object orbiting the sun on 15th March 2004. Sedna is 90 AU away from the sun and is about 1250km to 1800km in diameter. It is about 20.5 magnitudes and takes 10,500 years to circle the sun.
It was first discovered on 14 November 2003 by the team of Mike Brown (Caltech), Chad Trujillo (Gemini Observatory) and David Rabinowitz (Yale) on the Samuel Oschin Telescope at the Palomar Observatory east of San Diego.

Sedna is not a planet. What is a planet anyway? It is hard to define. Astronomers define a planet to be any body in the solar system that is more massive than the total mass of all of the other bodies in a similar orbit. But if that's the case, Pluto can't be considered a planet. Then, what is Pluto? Pluto is just a largest Kuiper belt object. Astronomers had commented "Planetary demotion has happened before... ... When the first asteroids were discovered they were called planets, since no one knew what else to call them... ... The time has come for Pluto to take its rightful place as the largest Kuiper belt object." Therefore, Sedna is known as an planetoid (a planetoid is any round object in the solar system that is not big enough to be considered a planet). So far, Sedna is the only known object in inner Oort cloud but its definitely not the only one. A alternative definition promoted by astronomers is that anything in the solar system that is made round by its own gravity should be considered a planet. The definition takes the solar system from 9 planets to hundreds of planets, when you include all of the asteroids, satellites (the moon!), and Kuiper belt objects that are round. Astronomers are still debating whether Pluto can be considered a planet.

From observations, astronomers have determined that Sedna likely rotates once every approximately 40 days. Why the slow rotation? The hypothesis is that Sedna's slow rotation is caused by the effect of a moon! The existence of this moon can be confirmed with observations from the Hubble Space Telescope, which should be able to direct see the tiny satellite.

How was Sedna found? Using the Palomar QUEST camera and the Samuel Oschin Telescope at Palomar Observatory in Southern California, astronomers have been conducting an ongoing survey of the outer solar system. To date, 40 bright Kuiper belt objects were found. To find objects in the sky, astronomers take three pictures of a small region of the night sky over three hours and look for something that moves. The many billions of stars and galaxies visible in the sky appear stationary, while satellites, planets, asteroids, and comets appear to move. Objects in the inner Oort cloud are extremely distant and so move extremely slowly. Sedna was found moving quite slowly, it appear as faint spot. Vast areas of the sky have to be searched before something this unusual is found. More search are being conducted for new objects for the next few years.

Okay... I am too lazy to summarize anymore. Sort of copy and paste the last bit. Haha... See... like I said billion and one times before, astronomy is a very interesting subject. To find out more on Sedna... check this out >>> http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/sedna/ or http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004/16mar_sedna.htm?list807449