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New dwarf planet spotted at the edge of the solar system
(www.newscientist.com)
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this post was submitted on 23 May 2025
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Astronomy
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“The object is currently about 90.5 astronomical units (AU) away from us, or roughly 90 times as far from Earth as the sun is.”
This sentence pissed me off so much and I stopped reading after it.
It is 90.5 times as far from the Sun as the Earth is from the Sun. Why’d you have to go and change the frame of reference to Earth?
They didn't change the reference, they defined an AU.
It didn't. It's 90.5 AU from us, and us is Earth. Or do you live on the Sun?
If we are 1AU from the sun, and this planet is 90AU from the sun, then it is between 89 and 91 AUs from earth depending on the progress of our orbits (assuming perfectly circular orbits). So they did change the frame of reference.
This dwarf planet is 90 AU from US not from the sun. They just said that the dwarf planet is 90 AU away from us and that 1 AU is equal to the distance between the sun and the earth.
But since the dwarf planets orbit is extremely eccentric that varies heavily.
You are right. I stand corrected.
Well it's a good frame of reference because it's where most of us keep all our stuff.
I mean, they said "roughly".
Like, give or take one AU, throughout the year.
Fair, but annoying to the pendantic.
"It's 20.5°C outside or roughly 20 notches on your thermometer (except for americans)"
Here's another article that doesn't do this for anyone else that would prefer it:
https://phys.org/news/2025-05-extreme-cousin-pluto-dwarf-planet.html