eris be thy name

it is now official! the once tenth planet wannabe, the body previously called xena by its founder michael brown and the media, this controversy causing orb whose official catalog name is 2003 UB313, this thorn in pluto's short lived planetary side now has an official name.
ERIS is its name-o.

eris is the greek goddess of discord and strife, and the instigator of the trojan wars. i am sure pluto would not disagree with this choice.

xena, er eris, does have a moon. the moon was temporarily named after xena's sidekick from the show. i could look up the name, but why? that name is out, and DYSNOMIA is in. dysnomia is the daughter of eris. she represents the spirit of lawlessness. i guess the IAU wanted to provide some sort of vague xena reference in their name choice (lawlessness = lucy lawless). dysnomia does have a medical meaning also. it refers to marked problems remembering names and recalling words.

here is some info on eris and dysnomia
discovered: january 5, 2005
discoverer: michael brown
diameter: 1,490 miles (2,400 km)
which is 5% bigger than pluto, for all those with whom size does matter
orbit: closest distance to sun = 37.9 AU
furthest distance from sun = 97.6 AU
current distance from sun = 96 AU
sunlight leaving our sun takes over 13 hours to finally reach eris and dysnomia
for reference, pluto's orbit ranges from 30 AU to 50 AU
NOTE: one AU is short for astronomical unit. it is the distance from the sun to the earth, about 89.76 million miles.
year: 557.8 earth years to orbit the sun
day: not known
temp: a rather chilly -405 F
moon size: an estimated 190 miles (305 km) in diameter
that is about all we know

i wonder why the IAU waited to name this 'dwarf planet' till now. they should have done it before the whole planet debate. they refused to call eris xena, instead using boring 2003 UB313. eris would have recieved much more attention had it had a 'real' name at the time of the planet debates.