Personally I would have voted for the planet Xena. After all, who wants to tick off a leather clad woman with a sword ?
Xena loses lonely spot in starlight
Kiwi actress Lucy Lawless' alter ego Xena has been denied a place in the stars but there will still be some lawlessness on a new dwarf planet.
The distant icy rock nicknamed Xena after the television character will officially be known as Eris, the Greek goddess of chaos and strife, and classed a dwarf planet along with the downgraded Pluto.
The naming ceremony follows an earlier vote by the International Astronomical Union.
The decision overrode the nickname Xena initially bestowed upon the dwarf planet by Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology, a fan of Lawless' Xena: Warrior Princess.
Lawless found out Xena was being considered for dwarf planet status from fans. Before the vote was taken she had been in contact with Gerard van Belle, a delegate at the Prague astronomy conference.
She had excitedly welcomed being indirectly immortalised, playfully batting away suggestions other names were in the offering.
But for Lawless there will still be a little bit of Lucy in the sky Eris' moon, originally nicknamed Gabrielle after Xena's travelling sidekick, has also received a formal name: Dysnomia, the daughter of Eris known as the spirit of lawlessness.
Eris, which measures about 115km wider than Pluto, is the farthest known object in the solar system at 14.5 million kilometres from the sun.
Xena loses lonely spot in starlight
Kiwi actress Lucy Lawless' alter ego Xena has been denied a place in the stars but there will still be some lawlessness on a new dwarf planet.
The distant icy rock nicknamed Xena after the television character will officially be known as Eris, the Greek goddess of chaos and strife, and classed a dwarf planet along with the downgraded Pluto.
The naming ceremony follows an earlier vote by the International Astronomical Union.
The decision overrode the nickname Xena initially bestowed upon the dwarf planet by Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology, a fan of Lawless' Xena: Warrior Princess.
Lawless found out Xena was being considered for dwarf planet status from fans. Before the vote was taken she had been in contact with Gerard van Belle, a delegate at the Prague astronomy conference.
She had excitedly welcomed being indirectly immortalised, playfully batting away suggestions other names were in the offering.
But for Lawless there will still be a little bit of Lucy in the sky Eris' moon, originally nicknamed Gabrielle after Xena's travelling sidekick, has also received a formal name: Dysnomia, the daughter of Eris known as the spirit of lawlessness.
Eris, which measures about 115km wider than Pluto, is the farthest known object in the solar system at 14.5 million kilometres from the sun.
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