For many years it has been predicted that a planet lay beyond the orbit of Pluto. It was called by many different names but a couple of the more popular ones were Planet X and Vulcan. This would not be a hot dry world like the Vulcan pictured on the original Star Trek since the sun would only be a light the size of a pinhead. But there is one coincidence that can not be denied. Vulcan was always pictured as a sort of reddish planet and the new planet like object is reddish in color and the most reddish planet like object in the solar system outside of Mars. The new object has been named Sedna. And the discovery doesn't end there, evidence, though indirect, indicated that the planet may have at least one moon. The picture on the left shows a frigid planetary object covered by ice with a small moon and a tiny sun shinning on it. Picture Source: Artwork by me

This new object is quite a distance from the sun, about 8 Billion miles, making it the most distant object discovered in the solar system so far. The object is about three fourths the size of Pluto. Some astronomers believe that the planet is only half the size of Pluto. Astronomers estimate Pluto's size to be 1395 miles in diameter. Because of its size some astronomers are calling it a planetoid. If you think that 8 Billion miles from the sun is quite a distance, the planet, at its farthest point is 84 Billion miles from the sun. The orbit around the sun takes 10,500 years. The planet Sedna was named after after the Inuit goddess of the ocean. In the region of space where Sedna is located, the temperatures never rises above 400 degrees Fahrenheit and Sedna might even be colder unless there is some process taking place there that we don't know about, but this seems unlikely since no heat was detected using the space telescope. This makes scientists believe that Sedna's diameter is about or below 1000 miles.

There is a lot of talk about the Oort cloud. This is an area located about 20 Billion miles from the sun. Supposedly this is the area where the comets come from. but there is no special direction of origination for comets. It is thought that the Oort Cloud contains a large portion of the mass of the solar system. It is felt by some that Sedna has come from the Oort cloud, but others feel that it is not distant enough. Since Sedna is 84 Billion miles away at its furthest point, it would seem to qualify as an object from the Oort cloud.

Dr. Mike Brown, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif., associate professor of planetary astronomy is the leader of the research team. Sedna was discovered on November 14, 2003 by Dr. Brown, Dr.Chad Trujillo of the Gemini Observatory, Hawaii, and Dr. David Rabinowitz of Yale University, New Haven, Conn. The Doctors were using the Mt. Palomar Observatory's 48 inch Samuel Oschin Telescope.

Sedna is also unusual because of it strange elliptical orbit. Nothing like it has been seen before. but it meets projections of objects lying in the Oort Cloud. Dr. Brown thinks that since Sedna comes so close that an inner Oort cloud may have been formed by a rogue star near the sun. He says that the star would have been brighter than the full moon. He explained that it would have dislodged comets in the Oort Cloud causing an intense comet shower on Earth which may have wiped out some forms of life. Could this be how the dinosaurs disappeared?

Dr Rabinowitz thinks that indirect evidence indicates that Sedna may have been a moon. Researchers will work on checking this possibility out. Dr. Trujillo is examining the surface of Sedna with one of the world's biggest telescopes. The surface of Sedna doesn't fit predictions according to Dr. Rabinowitz. Sedna will continue to come closer to Earth for another 72 years, then it will begin to retreat back into the dark reaches of the solar system not to be that close again for 10,500 years.