The IAU (International Astronomical Union) has still not given a decision or either the planet’s status (whether or not it can be called a planet) or its name (if it is going to be considered a planet).

The IAU has established a working group of people to define the minimum size for a planet. Once that definition is established, we will know if Xena will be considered a planet or not. If she is determined to be a planet, then another IAU group will determine the actual name that will be assigned to it.

Rumor has it that the International Astronomical Union (IAU) has either made a decision (or will soon) as to whether or not the tenth planet will really be classified as a planet or not. News to follow as soon as anything is confirmed.

The original discoverers of the tenth planet, along with astronomers at the Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea took a look at the 10th planet with a new instrument that allows them to see details as precise as those seen from the Hubble Space Telescope. The images quickly revealed that it has a faint moon in orbit around it!

The Spitzer Science Center will run another calculation at the end of August to try to get a better determination of the size of 2003 UB313. Some problems encountered earlier with the telescope have been worked on, and the team hopes to get a clearer picture with the new test.

It looks highly likely that the tenth planet will not be named Xena. The IAU is the group responsible for approving astronomical names and they have suggested that the name should follow in the Greco-Roman tradition that the previous planets used. Since Xena does not fall into the Greco-Roman naming structure, the discoverers will have to come up with a more suitable name. Pity. I was hoping Xena would be approved. In addition, the IAU first must decide if they agree that the object really is a planet. Only after they make this decision, will they agree to a name.

2003 UB313, or Xena, is currently thought to be about 2,000 miles across, which is a good bit bigger than Pluto. Pluto is only 1,450 miles across. However, it may take another 6 months to determine the exact size of Xena.

At its far distance from the sun, an average day’s temperature would be somewhere around minus 400 degrees F on Xena. Might be a great place to hold the next Winter Olympics?

It takes more than 204,000 days for the tenth planet, nicknamed Xena, to orbit the sun. That’s a long, long year, 558 of our years – or about 7 or 8 of our lifespans.

Dr Brown and his team have christened the planet, Xena, after the warrior princess in the old television series, “… because we always wanted to name something Xena”. But the formal decision on a name will be made by the International Astronomical Union.

I would love to see it named Xena, but we will have to wait and see. Until we get an official name, I’m going to refer to it as Xena rather than the more boring 2003 UB313.

The discoverers of the tenth planet are Michael E. Brown (Caltech), Chad Trujillo (Gemini Observatory), and David Rabinowitz (Yale University). They first imaged the object on October 21, 2003, but didn’t see it move in the sky until reimaging the same area 15 months later on January 8, 2005. They announced the discovery on July 29, 2005.