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Eris

Makemake’s Mysteriously Missing Atmosphere

November 21, 2012

Want to stay on top of all the space news? Follow @universetoday on Twitter Artist’s impression of the surface of Makemake, a dwarf planet beyond Pluto (ESO/L. Calçada/Nick Risinger) It turns out there’s no air up there: the distant dwarf planet Makemake is surprisingly lacking in an atmosphere, according to findings made by astronomers using [...]

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Are Pluto and Eris Twins?

October 26, 2011

Back a couple of weeks ago, I wrote an article highlighting the debate between scientists on which dwarf planet is bigger, Pluto or Eris. During a planetary science conference earlier this month in France, word “leaked” out that Eris was still more massive, but likely smaller in diameter. Today, the latest findings were published in [...]

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Pluto or Eris: Which is Bigger?

October 14, 2011

The controversy between Pluto and Eris regarding their status as “largest dwarf planet” continues. During a joint meeting of the American Astronomical Society Division for Planetary Sciences and the European Planetary Science Congress last week in Nantes, France, new data was presented that may help settle the debate. The new findings regarding this size of [...]

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Video: Stellar Occultation by Eris

November 11, 2010

On November 6, 2010, the dwarf planet Eris occulted a faint 16 magnitude star and this was the first time astronomers were able to witness an occultation by Eris. Additionally, at 96.6 Astronomical Units away, it was the most distant object for which this kind of occultation — where one astronomical object passes in front [...]

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Eris and Pluto: Two Peas in a Pod

October 6, 2010

Or two dwarf planets in the Kuiper Belt… Eris — that pesky big dwarf planet that caused all the brouhaha about planets, dwarf planets, plutoids and the like — has gotten a closer look by a team of astronomers from several different universities, and guess what? Eris and Pluto have a lot in common. Eris [...]

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