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named Eris, not Xena so much for a queer planet |
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Breathless scientists announced the discovery of our Solar System's 10th planet on July 29, 2005, and promptly nicknamed it Xena, after the warrior princess from TV series of the same name. The TV character Xena and the actress who played her, Lucy Lawless, have an extensive and wildly loyal following of fans in the lesbian community even though the TV series has been off the air for a few years. Xena was only an interim nickname for the planet according to Michael Brown, a member of the team that made the discovery using telescopes at the Palomar Observatory, outside San Diego, California. The team has discovered several new planets in recent years, including Quaoar, Sedna, and Orcus. Well, it was fun while it lasted but the name, Xena, didn't stick to this planet, which became known by its interim astronomical name, UB313. Finally, on Sept. 13, 2006 astronomers announced the official name: Eris (pronounced EE-ris). Nonetheless it's still fascinating that a straight male astronomer nicknamed a new planet after such an obviously lesbian TV character. We do live in interesting times. So the brief fling with a lesbian name for a planet ended, and Eris is the name. Oh well, Eris is still appropriate for the bitchy queens amongst us. Eris was the goddess of discord, and she certainly lived up to her name as a new planet. After much feather fluffing by astronomers about Eris's discovery, the astronomers demoted Pluto to dwarf planet status and then named Eris. Meanwhile, back at the telescopes, scientists still have much to learn about the new planet, but the basics have been pinned down. Eris is at least as big as Pluto, and likely bigger, with a diameter between 2,200 and 3,000 kilometers. It has a highly elliptical 560-year orbit around the Sun, which places it three times as far away from the Sun as Pluto and about 100 times as far away from the Sun as Earth. It is so far away that someone standing on Eris would see the Sun as about the same size as any other star. By whatever name, this new planet is made of methane ice and frozen rock with a temperature close to absolute zero, which is about -459ºF or -273ºC. An ephemeris (a mathematical listing of a planet's exact position on any given day) has been calculated for Eris, and thus begins the fun for astrologers. We will spend no small amount of time divining the astrological meaning and significance of Eris. You may expect this process to be fascinating. The teaching in western astrology, the only astrological system in the world which accepts new planets, is that when a new planet is discovered and named, the archetype of that planet is available to everyone on Earth. The name of the planet counts, so does the planet's mythology and the story of the planet.
For those of you who are astrologically knowledgeable, please visit my other astrology website for a comprehensive selection of ephemerides (that's the plural of ephemeris) for Eris. There you will find where this new planet is your natal astrological chart. Postscript: In mid-September, 2005, the scientists discovered Eris has a moon. Care to guess what their nickname was for the moon? Yeah, you're right: Gabrielle. That name didn't last either. The official name for the moon is now Dysnomia, who in mythology was the daughter of Eris and known as the spirit of lawlessness. Maybe one day they'll name a planet Toto. 
© Copyright 2005 - 2008 by Richard Brown, all rights reserved |
