Venetia Phair, who was 11 years old when she suggested Pluto as the name of the newly discovered planet, has died in England. She was 90. Phair suggested the name to her grandfather at breakfast in 1930. An asteroid discovered in 1987 was named in her honor: 6235 Burney. Full Story : LAtimes.com…….
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The name Plutoid was proposed by the members of the IAU Committee on Small Body Nomenclature (CSBN), accepted by the Board of Division III,as a name for transneptunian dwarf planets similar to Pluto. Plutoids are celestial bodies in orbit around the Sun at a distance greater than that of Neptune that have sufficient mass for their self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that they assume a hydrostatic equilibrium (near-spherical) shape, and that have not cleared the neighbourhood around their orbit. The two known and named plutoids are Pluto and Eris. The IAU has been responsible for naming planetary bodies and their satellites since the early 1900s.
Image Credit:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Pluto_system_2006.jpg
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