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Eris (minor-planet designation: 136199 Eris) is the most massive and second-largest known dwarf planet in the Solar System. [22] It is a trans-Neptunian object (TNO) in the scattered disk and has a high-eccentricity orbit. Eris was discovered in January 2005 by a Palomar Observatory–based team led by Mike Brown and verified
In astronomy, the rotation period or spin period [1] of a celestial object (e.g., star, planet, moon, asteroid) has two definitions. The first one corresponds to the sidereal rotation period (or sidereal day), i.e., the time that the object takes to complete a full rotation around its axis relative to the background stars (inertial space).
All the solar planets more distant from the Sun than Earth are similar to Earth in that, since they experience many rotations per revolution around the Sun, there is only a small difference between the length of the sidereal day and that of the solar day – the ratio of the former to the latter never being less than Earth's ratio of 0.997.
Daytime length or daytime duration is the time elapsed between beginning and end of the daytime period. Given that Earth's own axis of rotation is tilted 23.44° to the line perpendicular to its orbital plane, called the ecliptic, the length of daytime varies with the seasons on the planet's surface, depending on the observer's latitude.
The length of the day (LOD), which has increased over the long term of Earth's history due to tidal effects, is also subject to fluctuations on a shorter scale of time. Exact measurements of time by atomic clocks and satellite laser ranging have revealed that the LOD is subject to a number of different changes.
Dwarf planet Eris, similar in size to its better-known cosmic cousin Pluto, has remained an enigma since being discovered in 2005 lurking in the solar system's far reaches. While Pluto was ...
The largest known trans-Neptunian objects are Pluto and Eris, followed by Haumea, Makemake, Gonggong, Quaoar, Sedna, and Orcus, all of them being officially recognized as dwarf planets by the IAU except for Gonggong, Sedna, and Orcus. There are also many possible dwarf planets, such as Salacia, (307261) 2002 MS 4, Varda, Ixion, and Varuna.
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