[meteorite-list] Pluto is Now Just a Number: 134340

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue Sep 12 12:46:22 2006
Message-ID: <200609121646.JAA05763_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://space.com/scienceastronomy/060911_pluto_asteroidnumber.html

Pluto is Now Just a Number: 134340
By Ker Than
space.com
11 September 2006

Pluto has been given a new name to reflect its new status as a dwarf planet.

On Sept. 7, the former 9th planet was assigned the asteroid number
134340 by the Minor Planet Center (MPC), the official organization
responsible for collecting data about asteroids and comets in our solar
system.

The move reinforces the International Astronomical Union's (IAU) recent
decision to strip Pluto of its planethood and places it in the same category
as other small solar-system bodies with accurately known orbits.

Pluto's companion satellites, Charon, Nix and Hydra are considered part of
the same system and will not be assigned separate asteroid numbers, said
MPC director emeritus Brian Marsden. Instead, they will be called 134340 I,
II and III, respectively.

There are currently 136,563 asteroid objects recognized by the MPC;
2,224 new objects were added last week, of which Pluto was the first.

Other notable objects to receive asteroid numbers included 2003 UB313,
also known as "Xena," and the recently discovered Kuiper Belt objects
2003 EL61 and 2005 FY9. Their asteroid numbers are 136199, 136108 and
136472, respectively.

The MPC also issued a separate announcement stating that the assignment
of permanent asteroid numbers to Pluto and other large objects located
beyond the orbit of Neptune "does not preclude their having dual
designations in possible separate catalogues of such bodies."

Marsden explained that the cryptic wording refers to the future
possibility of creating a separate astronomical catalogue specific to
dwarf planets. There might even be more than one catalogue created, he
said.

The recent IAU decision implies "that there would be two catalogues of
dwarf planets - one for just the trans-Neptunian Pluto type and the other
for objects like Ceres, which has also been deemed a dwarf planet,"
Marsden told SPACE.com. "That's why that statement was put there, to
reassure people who think there would be other catalogues that this
numbering of Pluto doesn't preclude that."
Received on Tue 12 Sep 2006 12:46:13 PM PDT