Audio: Sedna Loses Its Moon

Remember Sedna? It’s that icy object uncovered last year in the outer reaches of the Solar System. When it was first discovered, astronomers noticed it rotated once every 20 days. The only explanation that could explain this slow rotation was a moon, but a moon never showed up in any of their observations. Scott Gaudi is a researcher with the Harvard Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics. He and his colleagues have been watching the rotation of Sedna with a skeptical eye, and think it’s only rotating once every 10 hours or so. As for the moon? Easy come, easy go.

Listen to the interview: sedna.mp3 (3.8 mb)

Or subscribe to the Podcast: universetoday.com/audio.xml