This week astronomer Mike Brown and graduate student Emily Schaller released new results showing the Kuiper Belt object Eris is 27% more massive then Pluto (which is a few more percentage points more massive than was previously known.
Neither object is a planet. (image credit: NASA)
Here are the stats.
| Pluto | Eris | Mass | 13.0×10^21 kg | 16.6×10^21 kg | |
| Radius | 1195 km | 1200 km | |||
| Semi-Major Axis | 39.5 AU | 67.7 AU |
For those of you who really really want Pluto to be a planet, please listen to this episode of Astronomy Cast before you send me angry comments.
I would like to have this as a screensaver!!!!!