‘10th Planet’ May Not Be as Large as Estimated
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From Times Staff and Wire Reports
An icy ball discovered last year in the outer solar system is only slightly larger than Pluto, astronomers reported Tuesday. Previous estimates by ground-based telescopes suggested the object officially known as 2003 UB313, but called Xena, was 30% bigger than Pluto.
But the latest measurement by the Hubble Space Telescope has a smaller margin of error, said astronomer Michael Brown of Caltech, who discovered the so-called 10th planet. According to Hubble, UB313’s diameter is 1,490 miles, give or take 60 miles. Pluto is about 1,422 miles across.
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