By Jennifer Mayer
Astronomers have discovered a new comet in the outskirts of the solar system.
The comet, named Quaoar (KWAH-oar) after a California Indian tribe, is the largest object found in the solar system since Pluto, according to Chad Trujillo professor at California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and co-discoverer with Mike Brown.
They found the object June 2002. It is detectable a few degrees northwest of the constellation Scorpio.
The discovery was not unexpected, but its size is a surprise, said Dr. Harold McManara, BYU professor in the department of physics and astronomy. Quaoar is approximately half the size of Pluto.
'It''s about the size of all asteroids put together, so this thing is really quite big,' Brown said.
Quaoar is approximately a billion miles beyond Pluto and orbits the sun every 288 years.
'It''s significant in scientific progress as we continue to try to understand what the solar system consists of,' said Dr. J. Ward Moody, BYU professor in the department of astrophysics and astronomy.
The discovery was not unexpected because comets are found in the solar system every day, Moody said.
'The theories of where comets come from are being verified as we find the larger distribution of them,' he said.
Comets generally are discovered in two groups: the Kuiper Belt, which Quaoar is in, and the Oor Belt, Moody said. Quaoar is the third largest in the Kuiper Belt. Pluto and its moon are the only two larger.
The discovery also questions Pluto''s title as planet, Brown said.
'Quaoar definitely hurts the case for Pluto being a planet,' Brown said. 'If Pluto were discovered today, no one would even consider calling it a planet because it''s clearly a Kuiper belt object.'
'Pluto is really an extremely large Kuiper belt comet,' Moody said. 'Some people say it really is not a planet, because it is more made up of material from the Kuiper belt. It really is just the king of the comets.'
The discovery of Quaoar was announced Oct. 14 during a meeting of the American Astronomical Society''s division of planetary sciences in Birmingham, Ala.