Our celestial neighborhood just got a little bigger this week, with the discovery of Sedna, another planet beyond the orbit of Pluto. Sedna, named after the Inuit goddess of the Arctic Ocean (okay, a pretty name, and somewhat appropriate considering its -240 Celsius average temperature, but doesn't this goof up our Graeco-Roman scheme of nomenclature? Doesn't anyone care about internal consistency anymore? Scientists are the worst offenders in this regard, to be sure - just look at what they've done to Linnaeus' system of taxonomic names, allowing such Road Runner-esque names as Niebla josecuervoe [foggy Jose Cuervo cactus] to Phyllidia polkadotsa [polka-dotted sea slug] into the admittedly artificial but nevertheless adaptable Neolatin used for scientific nomenclature. No wonder people think that they can just put "-us" on the end of any word to make it sound like Latin!), is slightly smaller than Pluto, but appears like its closest neighbor to have a moon. No word yet on what they'll name Sedna's satellite if its existence is confirmed - let's hope at least that they stick with the Inuit motif...
A really weird and totally unexpected thing about Sedna, however, is its color. Aside from Mars, Sedna is the reddest object in the Solar System, and quite bright for a little lump of rock and ice. Why? No one seems to know, which I guess isn't all that surprising, considering that no one even knew of this planet's existence until recently. What's amazing is that we're finding all of these new things in the cosmic equivalent of our backyard; who knows what's in store for us when we finally start looking at other solar systems, other galaxies, and the mysteries of deep interstellar space!
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