2003 EL61 - Discovery controversy

2003 EL61 (also written 2003 EL61), nicknamed "Santa" (non-official designation), is a very large and unusual Kuiper belt object recently discovered by Mike Brown et al. at Caltech in the United States. The nickname stems from its discovery just after Christmas, on December 28, 2004, although the Caltech team had acquired images of it starting May 6, 2004. The nickname is only temporary and will not be the official name of the object. IAU guidelines dictate that the object will be named after a c ...

Including:

• 2003 EL61 - Discovery controversy
• 2003 EL61 - Size and composition
• 2003 EL61 - Orbit
• 2003 EL61 - Moons
• 2003 EL61 - S/2005 2003 EL₆₁ 1
• 2003 EL61 - S/2005 2003 EL₆₁ 2

Read more here: » 2003 EL61: Encyclopedia - 2003 EL61

José Luis Ortiz Moreno, an astronomer at the Sierra Nevada Observatory in Spain, and colleagues Francisco José Aceituno Castro and Pablo Santos-Sanz announced the discovery of the object on July 25, 2005, when they re-analysed observations they had made on March 7, 2003. They then scoured older archives (a process known as precovery) and found the object in images dating back to 1955. Ortiz's group announced their discovery on July 27, 20 ...

See also:

2003 EL61, 2003 EL61 - Discovery controversy, 2003 EL61 - Size and composition, 2003 EL61 - Orbit, 2003 EL61 - Moons, 2003 EL61 - S/2005 2003 EL₆₁ 1, 2003 EL61 - S/2005 2003 EL₆₁ 2

Read more here: » 2003 EL61: Encyclopedia II - 2003 EL61 - Discovery controversy

The total mass of the 2003 EL61 system can be determined from the orbits of its satellites by Kepler's third law. It turns out to be 4.2×1021 kg, 28% the mass of the Plutonian system. If 2003 EL61 were an ordinary body, its size could only be guessed at. However, it rotates extremely rapidly, faster than any known body larger than 100 km in diameter, and this rotation should distort its shape into an oblate spheroid. Indeed, 2003 EL61 displays large fluctuations in brightness. Although thes ...

See also:

2003 EL61, 2003 EL61 - Discovery controversy, 2003 EL61 - Size and composition, 2003 EL61 - Orbit, 2003 EL61 - Moons, 2003 EL61 - S/2005 2003 EL₆₁ 1, 2003 EL61 - S/2005 2003 EL₆₁ 2

Read more here: » 2003 EL61: Encyclopedia II - 2003 EL61 - Size and composition