On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 16:41:10 +1300, steve wrote:

Don McDonald wrote:

What is Planet X orbit?**Looking*in*plane*of*solar*system*or
Earth's orbit.
Can you do a travelling salesman closed tour of the solar system
in under 12 hours before?**Laser*beam*bounce*speed*of*light.
Shine torch at the Sun.

kind Regards
yours sincerely,

/**Don*S.**McDonald**(Wellington,*New*Zealand)

It's Chyron (or similar)....reckoned to be little more than a very large
snowball.....and there is a debate as to whether it is a planet, a moon or
a large asteroid.....because there are a couple of moons elsewhere in the
solar system that are larger than this "planet".

There was a good few years ago a suggestion that there was a 10th
planet closer to the Sun than Mercury. IIRC they were planning to call
it Vulcan.That theory seems to have disappeared; but I heard a talk on
it at the time by a visiting astronomer who mentioned the same
definitional debate. The supposed body was far smaller than any known
planet and would be an asteroid except it wasn't where asteroids
normally are, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

Suggestions from the audience included "asteroidoid" and "planette".

Whatever happened to "Vulcan"?

Steve B.