Eleventh Planet Discovered to be a Hoax

This hub, while mostly an April Fools prank, is a tribute to the phenomenal discovery of what at the time was the tenth planet by Michael Brown, a remarkably good sport, by the way, who read the obviously fabricated dialogue between "Wynn Sommers" (Winsome) and himself and pronounced it "good fun." I decided to leave the hub up for a while so the few brave souls who find it can enjoy ferreting out the clues I left within the text. Mike will soon be releasing a book entitled "How I Killed Pluto-And Why it Had it Coming" which is the story of the real discovery of a tenth planet and how it and Pluto were subsequently demoted to dwarf planets.

Lirpa Sloof, formal designation 110214Lirpa, took the scientific community completely by surprise earlier today when a young amateur astronomer, Wynn Sommers from the big island of Hawaii, using a combination of traditional lenses and an extremely powered main frame computer using HDTV technology hooked to an array of microwave discs cobbled from recycled commercial units, discovered a red variety phaseolus vulgaris gas giant trans-Uranusian object (TUO) native to a region of space beyond the Kuiper belt (known as the scattered disc) where the ninth planet Eris was discovered in 2005.

A team of Palomar Observatory astronomers led by CalTech astronomer Ciondolare Marrone verified that it was not a comet as was initially proposed, but is in fact a planet. The orbit is an eliptical one and only gets close enough for accurate calculations once a year precisely at this time. Early speculation of it's comet nature was dispelled by Sommer's innovative hybrid telescope which accurately identified it as a type of massive phaseolus vulgaris giant gas planets believed to be part of the same "big bang" components as Uranus.

Lirpa's distance from the sun is estimated to be from 97.4 AU to 102.5 AU because of its kidney shaped orbit. This particular form of gas giants are known to vary in size depending upon the amount of gas generated by extremely hot reactions in their cores reaching up to 2 million SHU's. In mythology, these planets were deemed too odious to be in the company of other Gods and were allowed audience but once a year. In honor of this tradition and the mischievous nature of the planet's name, Sommers elected to announce the discovery on April 1, 2011.

It's diameter, estimated to be between 2600 to 2700 km, is about 30% the size of Earth and about 3% larger than Eris, the newly discovered ninth planet. Mike Brown, the discoverer of Eris has disputed that claim, arguing that as soon as the excess trans uranusian gasses subside, Lirpa "the Usurper" will be less massive than Eris and Pluto--placing it also in the lowly dwarf planet status and thus leaving the solar system with only eight planets.

Wynn Sommers, upon hearing of Mike Browns comments, quipped: "Well what do you expect from someone who named their dwarf planet after the goddess of envy and strife." Ciondolare Marrone, agreed: "All the other planets are so angry--Mars god of war and now Eris, goddess of war and strife. Wynn and I decided on Lipra the Roman imp of mirth and Sloof, the Welsh spirit of good humor. Who says scientists can't be fun?" Prior to the discovery of Lirpa, Eris was the most massive known dwarf planet in the Solar System and the ninth most massive body known to orbit the Sun directly.

Eris was discovered in an ongoing survey at Palomar Observatory's Samuel Oschin telescope by astronomers Mike Brown (Caltech), Chad Trujillo (Gemini Observatory), and David Rabinowitz (Yale University). The working name for Eris had been Xena and it's moon Dy was called Gabrielle. After somber debate, the group decided to choose the name of a Greek god and Eris was accepted and announced on 13 September 2006. In Greek mythology, Eris, the goddess of warfare and strife caused the Trojan War because she was excluded from one of the God's weddings. In the astronomical world, the question of Eris' status caused such a row among the members of the International Astronomical Union in Prague, that they demoted both Eris and Pluto to dwarf status, thus removing them from the list of planets.

Local IAU members were heard to voice their objections to yet another controversy at the next meeting over the status of Lirpa Sloof. "A Phaseolus Vulgaris gas giant is certain to raise quite a stink in Prague and young Wynn had better hold his breath before joining the ranks of esteemed astronomers dating back to Galileo."

The dwarf planet Eris is almost 10 billion miles from the sun and is more than 3 times farther than the next closest planet, Pluto. The International Astronomical Union defined what constitutes a planet because of the controversy stirred up by the discovery of the "planet" Eris.

The orbit of Wynn Sommer's "planet" is similar to that of Eris but with a characteristic dimple due to the proximity and affinity for Uranus prompting Brown's group to call it the "kidney bean" orbit. Marrone and Sommers issued a statement saying: "No phaseolus vulgaris could ever be confused with a 'kidney' bean."

Every time you find indications of an object in the outer solar system, you get a little charge. You go through all this data and there’s nothing there, nothing there, nothing there, and then suddenly there’s something that no one has ever seen before except for you. It’s always a moment of excitement. Every once in awhile, the moments of excitement almost make you fall out of your chair. ~ Michael Brown