What do you know about the planets in our Solar System?

Mercury. It is the closest planet to the sun. It is named after the messenger of the god Zeus. Since it is the closest to the sun, it orbits the fastest.

Venus. It is the second closest planet to the sun. It is named after the Greek goddess of love and beauty. It is the brightest planet in the sky.

Earth. It is our home planet. It is the third closest planet to the sun. It is the only planet known to support life.

Mars, the red planet. It is the fourth planet from the sun, named after the Greek god of war. Scientists have just discovered water on Mars. It is the planet most like the planet Earth.

Jupiter. It is the fifth planet from the sun. And, it is the largest. Its name means "King of the Gods." Jupiter is a gas planet. Its has no solid surface.

Saturn, the sixth planet from the sun. There are three bright rings circling the planet. The rings make Saturn very easy to recognize in the night sky.

Uranus. It is the seventh furthest from the sun. It was the first planet to be discovered. It has twenty moons.

Neptune-the eighth planet from the sun. It is the blue planet.

Pluto. It is the farthest planet from the sun. It is the smallest planet. It is the last planet scientists have discovered. Some scientists even think it is too small to be a planet. They say that it is just a large asteroid rock.

Since the discovery of the planet Pluto in nineteen thirty, no larger objects have been discovered in space.

Until NOW!

Yes! In June two thousand and two astronomers discovered a new, small, mini-planet. The name of this new planet is Quaoar. Named after the creator god of an Indian people in California in the United States.

Astronomers first saw Quaoar while using a very strong telescope. This telescope lets people see very far into space from earth. The objects and images that the telescope sees appear on a computer screen. That way the astronomers can look closely the computer to see what is in the sky.

Quaoar first appeared as just a soft light on the computer. The light surprised the astronomers. But, they needed a stronger telescope to understand just exactly what they were seeing. So, the astronomers used the Hubble Space Telescope. The Hubble telescope is up in space right now. It is able to get better images than we can from earth.

The images taken from the Hubble Space telescope let the astronomers estimate the size of Quaoar. They found the surface to be about one thousand kilometres across. That is a little over half the size of Pluto. It is the biggest object to be found in space since nineteen thirty.

Astronomers could also measure Quaoar's distance from the earth, using the images from the Hubble Space Telescope. Quaoar is about seven billion kilometres away from earth! No object that far away in the solar system had ever been seen before. The astronomers could not believe it! What a discovery!

After their big discovery the astronomers wondered if Quaoar had ever been seen before but had just been over looked. They began to look at old pictures taken of space. They came across Dr. Kowal's pictures. And there, they found that Dr Kowal's pictures showed the light of Quaoar. Dr. Kowal had overlooked this little planet in nineteen eighty-two.

But Dr. Kowal did not feel bad. In fact, he was very happy about the discovery. He said,

'This just shows that keeping old pictures is a good idea. I am happy that my old work is useful.'

It is true that the discovery of Quaoar was made possible through the work of many different people. And through continued work, astronomers are leaning more and more about Quaoar.

That's right. Astronomers now know that Quaoar is moving around the sun. Its orbit is very even and circular. The planet is made up of ice and rock. Quaoar came from the outer edge of our solar system. Astronomers have named this far off place the Kuiper Belt. Quaoar offers evidence to astronomers that large objects exist in the Kuiper Belt. Their hope is that they will find more planets in the future. They feel that one even bigger than Pluto could exist somewhere out there!

Astronomers are also hoping to use Quaoar to learn more about objects in space. They want to know more about the materials that these objects are made of. Some astronomers believe that the material found in the Kuiper Belt is over five billion years old!

It sounds like being an astronomer can be very fun. They get to discover new planets and study objects billions of years old! They spend their time enjoying the beautiful night sky.

Discovering something new CAN be very exciting. But, it is not just astronomers or scientists that can discover new parts of the universe. Everyone is able to discover new and wonderful parts of creation. We just need to keep our eyes open to the world around us. When was the last time you looked into the night sky? When was the last time you waited long enough to see a shooting or falling star?

The universe is full of surprises. New animals wait to be discovered. New colours wait to be found. New planets wait to be seen. Creation is just like a gift waiting to be opened. We just need to be willing open that gift. We need to be willing to stop busy lives and look at the world around us. Who knows what we may discover? Maybe you will discover the next new planet.