(Mark Earnest) wrote:
I have been searching the Internet about the two newest planets
discovered, Sedna and Eris.

Actually, Sedna can't officially be labeled a planet yet, for the
reason given below. And Makemake was discovered after those two,
so I guess it's the newest dwarf planet in our

I can't even find a model or map of the Solar System with the orbits
of these two new planets on them.

I googled: map of solar system showing dwarf planets
First hit was http://www.vtaide.com/png/solar-system.htm
To be fair, although it does show Eris and Ceres, it doesn't show
Sedna, Haumea or Makemake, and it's surely not to scale. But it
at least gives a feel for the order of things, heading out from
the sun.

So how many planets do we now have? 9? 10? 11?
Maybe no one knows.

8 planets, 5 dwarf planets[1], and dozens, maybe even hundreds of
objects - including Sedna - that we haven't yet been able to observe
well enough to determine whether they have a near-spherical shape[2].

The number of non-dwarf planets in our solar system seems likely to
remain at 8. The number of dwarf planets, though, seems certain to
increase, and likely to reach the point where no one can remember
them all, any more than anyone can remember the names of all the
comets, or all the asteroids.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_planet
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...net_candidates

--
djb@ | Dan Birchall - Observation System Associate - Subaru Telescope.
naoj | Views I express are my own, certainly not those of my employer.
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