The object that caused so much confusion in 2003 by being bigger than Pluto has now been named. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) which recently demoted Pluto from ‘planet’ to ‘dwarf planet’ after the discovery of the object (formerly known as 2003 UB313) has decided to call that object Eris, after the Greek goddess of discord. A very fitting name! A hubble image of Eris is show here.

After Mike Brown and his team discovered Eris in 2003 and announced it last year, it put Pluto’s status in jeopardy. This of course resulted in last month’s creation of the dwarf planet category. The decision had caused much controversy and chaos in the astronomy community and so the name has been chosen to reflect that.

Eris has a moon, which has been named Dysnomia. Dysnomia was the daughter of Eris and was the goddess of lawlessness (the greeks really did a god for everything it seems). Eris has a highly elongated orbit and takes 560 years to go around the Sun. It is currently at its closest approach and so its discovery is quite coincidental and could indicate that there are other large objects hiding out there beyond detection.