BellaOnline Forums Education Astronomy Eris - Dwarf Planet *new article*

In a tilted orbit in the scattered disk, it shook up the traditional Solar System. Was it bigger than Pluto, and therefore a planet? No, both of them ended up as dwarf planets. Eris – named for the Greek goddess of discord – was an apt name for an object whose discovery started so many arguments.

Eris - Dwarf Planet

Mona this is a very informative article on Eris, dwarf planets and their moons!

Artist's concept of Eris, Dysnomia and the distant Sun. I wonder how the Sun would really look. From Pluto the Sun would look about the size of Jupiter when it's closest to us at opposition. But it would be around 300 times brighter than the full Moon. And Eris is currently about three times as far away as Pluto. The light intensity diminishes rapidly with distance. (My brain says *no* to even attempting the math.)

To the ancient Greeks, Eris was the winged goddess of discord and contention. Her Roman equivalent was Discordia. This is a picture of a Athenian black figure kylix c. 6th century BCE

Even the other gods didn't like the disagreeable Eris. She was the only one of the gods that didn't get invited to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis. Angered at this, she managed to initiate a quarrel amongst the goddesses that set in train the events that led to the Trojan War. Fortunately, despite the disagreement amongst astronomers that followed the discovery of the dwarf planet Eris, it wasn't on the scale of the Trojan War.