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Eris is a dwarf planet with an eccentric orbit between 37.77 AU and 97.56 AU from the Sun. It shocked the scientific community when discovered in 2005. Eris prompted the formal definition of “planet” and was classified as a “dwarf planet” along with Ceres and Pluto. Eris is a scattered disk object with a satellite, Dysnomia, and a surface temperature between -250 to -249 degrees Celsius. It orbits the Sun every 556.7 years and has the highest inclination of any planet or dwarf planet.
Eris is a dwarf planet with an eccentric orbit that takes it between 37.77 AU and 97.56 AU from the Sun. With a diameter of 2400 km and a mass 27% greater than Pluto, Eris shocked the international scientific community when it was discovered in 2005 by a team from Mount Palomar led by Mike Brown. Eris is named after the Greek goddess of discord.
The discovery of Eris prompted the International Union of Astronomers to formally define the word “planet”. Under the new definition, Eris was classified as a “dwarf planet” along with Ceres and Pluto, bringing the new total for solar system planets to eight. Neither body has cleared the neighborhood around their orbits, which is one of the necessary qualities an object must have if it is to be considered a true planet.
Eris is between 2,400 and 3,000 km in diameter – it’s so distant that we can’t get an exact measurement on it. It has a satellite, called Dysnomia. Eris is a scattered disk object, which is the term for an extremely large, distant, and widespread asteroid belt beyond the larger Kuiper belt, of which Pluto is a member. Eris is one of the known distant bodies in the solar system, with the exception of a few long-period comets. Its surface temperature is between 23 and 24 kelvins (-250 to -249 degrees Celsius).
Though sometimes called “Planet X” in the media, the original “Planet X” referred to an Earth-sized body that perturbed Neptune’s orbit. It turned out that the observed perturbation was actually an illusion and the scientific basis for a possible Planet X evaporated. However, the name has since stuck to refer to any planet beyond the orbit of Neptune, including Pluto.
Eris only orbits the Sun every 556.7 years. It has the highest inclination from the elliptical of any planet or dwarf planet: 44 degrees. Dysnomia orbits Eris every 15,774 days.
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