October 8, 2002
Scientists poking around some photos taken of the Kuiper Belt earlier in the summer discovered a worldlet 800 miles in diameter (compared to Earth's 8000 and the Moon's 2100) in an orbit farther out than Pluto's. They've named the newly-discovered body Quaoar (pron. "kwah-o-wahr") and are debating whether or not the thing's actually a planet or a "Kuiper Belt object." If it's a planet, we now have 10. If it's not, Pluto may be reclassified as a Kuiper Belt object as well, dropping us to eight.
Quaoar apparently travels in a circular orbit like the other eight planets and differing from Pluto, whose elliptical orbit takes it both inside Neptune's and outside Quaoar's. It obviously hasn't been mapped as yet (Pluto was only "mapped" a couple years ago using computers to guesstimate the tint of its surface from what photos are available). NASA plans on launching a Pluto probe in 2006 (and it probably wouldn't get there until 2016) which may check out Quaoar as well.
