(See Updates below to see how many times a single bit of news can surface and resurface, buffed up as though shiny new each time/cp)

Two weeks ago word circulated in several news outlets from a joint meeting in France of European planetary experts with the American Astronomical Society’s Division of Planetary Sciences about results of a meticulously planned observation of the Kuiper Belt heavweight orb named Eris. They came as it eclipsed a distant star. The duration and depth of the blink, as seen from several locations on Earth, provided info on Eris’s radius of curvature and hence its size (I think radius of curvature – the paper loses me at “..oblate Maclaurin spheroid..”). Now, rather than larger than Pluto, it’s a dead heat. Also confirmed is that Eris has a terrifically reflective coating of frozen atmosphere, even brighter than a fresh snowfall on Earth (not really, the sun being so dim out there, but per photon it’s impressive). Still, Eris has one leg up on Pluto in the mass and density department. Like Pluto and its partner Charon, Eris has a comparatively large moon, Dysmonia. Its orbital parameters allow inference of mass.

That got some news then, and again now that it’s published in Nature.

First News Impact:

• MSNBC Cosmic Log Oct 12) Alan Boyle : Dwarf planet’s downsizing confirmed ; As Boyle wrote a little big book on Pluto, he gets first place on the list. He’s a Pluto fan, needless to say. He writes “Pluto just might be the largest dwarf planet after all…” which is the same as saying it might be the second largest of the known dwarves. One also gets here a pocket lesson in the myths and realities of Nature’s embargo policy and the punishments inflicted (or not) on its authors who spill their beans before Nature does it for them.
• Universe Today – Ray Sanders: Pluto or Eris: Which is Bigger? ; Including a handy link to an explainer at well-known planetary astronomer Michael Browns’ blog spot.
• New Scientist – Lisa Grossman: Pluto’s rival is tinier but shinier than thought.
• Scientific American – John Matson: Pluto Might Be the Largest Dwarf Planet, after All ; Interesting that Sci Am is part of Nature’s publishing group, and thus knows well Nature’s embargo policy and felt free to write this up anyway.
• … a few more…

Second Bunch Today:

• Los Angeles Times – Amina Khan: Dwarf planet Eris surprises astronomers ;
• Wired – Mark Brown: Dwarf Planet Eris Is Icy Double of Pluto;
• Space.com – Mike Wall: Dwarf Planet Eris is “Almost Perfect” Pluto Twin;
• Cosmos (Australia Mag) Laura Greenhaigh: Dwarf planet Eris is Pluto’s equal;
• Ars Technica – Christopher Dombrowski: Dwarf planet Eris is bereft of atmosphere, about the size of Pluto ; Check it for a backlit, ethereal pic of one of the telescopes astronomers used for the job. Hard to say why the hed says bereft of air. Bereft means total abandonment, as in flat out. Even if most of it froze out and into its shiny veneer, a few zillion molecules surely have gone into sublimated equilibrium, one thinks, and be frolicking about.
• PhysicsWorld – Hamish Johnston: Dwarf planet brought into focus ; Clean write up, but … when one is the editor of the pub, as HJ is, who does the editing? (And don’t go picking on my flubs – I ain’t got no editor neither). As in, and to be dreadfully picky but still, somebody should have quietly turned the lede’s “further” into “farther,” as it is no mere reference to greater extent, but to distance. If it’s more far, it’s farther. If it’s just more, further will do. That’s how I learned it.
• ABC (Australia) Stuart Gary: Pluto and Eris found to be of equal measure ;
• … a few more this time, too.

One cannot help noting that, for all the early ink, Nature still got the bigger news bump from the official appearance of this Letter to Nature.

*UPDATE: See Comments. The Nature article does advance the ball in detail, but the story is the same as what two national newspapers had early this year.. Sharp-eyed reader Dan Vergano, who remembers what he wrote back in January, notes that these last two rounds make at least three instances in which this news has circulated – and at significant length in his article and also at the NYTimes:

• USA Today (Jan 12) Dan Vergano: Dwarf planets Pluto, Eris battle for a spot in a vast universe ;
• NYTimes (Jan 10) Kenneth Chang: The War of the Worlds, Round 2 ;

But that’s not all of it. Stirred  to sift the ashes further bythis  exposure of a failure of diligence the first time around , The Tracker discovers yet ANOTHER EVEN EARLIER BUMP! :

• National Geographic (Nov 22, 2010) Rachel Kaufman: Pluto Is the Biggest Dwarf Planet, After All? 
• Space.com (Nov. 9, 2010) Mike Wall: Dwarf Planet Eris May Be Smaller Than Pluto After All ;
• Duluth News Tribune “Astro Bob blog” (Nov. 9, 2010) Bob King: Pluto’s back in first place … for now ;
• MSNBC Cosmic Log (Nov. 7, 2010)  Alan Boyle: Pluto’s Rival Gets Downsized ; Even Alan, who wrote it up again this week, had already gotten the gist almost as soon as the occultation was done.
• Sky and Telescope, via New Scientist (Nov 8, 2010) Kelly Betty: Former ‘tenth planet” may be smaller than Pluto ;

Grist for the Mill: European Southern Observatory Press Release ; Nature abstract ;

 

Speaking of Celestial Ice Balls Dept:

• ScienceInsider – Adrian Cho: In Announcing Comet Crack-UP NASA Displays the Write Stuff ; What ho, Mr. Cho not only reveals the press release behind his story, but makes the story to be about the press release and its clever wit. (Note: earlier post blindly assumed, blind assumptions being a specialty of mine, that Adrian means a different gender for Cho).  The angle is the idiocy of internet bloggers and others who painted a looming comet as the deliverer of doom upon our Earth. One should, at his point, mention the public relations whiz behind the release, the Jet Propulsion Lab’s DC Agle. Dunno why he or she goes by just initials. Maybe the first name is Dorkus and the second even sillier. My step grandmother in law was named Dorkus, or maybe it was spelled Dorcas. I always wondered at this name that doesn’t even have a sex-or-pottyhumor connotation but is yet so funny on the ear.

- Charlie Petit

 

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