The discovery was announced today by
planetary scientist Dr.
Scientists can infer the size of a solar system object by its brightness,
just as one can infer the size of a faraway light bulb if one knows its
wattage. "SGI Reality Center environments have been
deployed all around the world in a vast variety of areas."

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supernovae extragalactic

Currently about 97 times further from the sun than the
Earth, the planet is the farthest-known object in the solar system, and the
third brightest of the Kuiper belt objects.
The dome is powered by a 24-processor SGI Onyx visualization system with
12GB RAM and six SGI(R) InfiniteReality4(TM) graphic pipes, each with 1GB of
dedicated texture memory.

utr nvss

Priscilla Frisch of the Department of Astronomy
and Astrophysics, University of Chicago and SGI produced the "Solar Journey"
show, a NASA-funded production that was specially created for the Beijing
Planetarium Dome. With offices worldwide, the
company is headquartered in Mountain View, Calif.

extragalactic starcast

This real-time database of our known Universe will keep growing as we make
more discoveries . This unique
installation is now linked to the immense resources of the Virtual Science
Network , a group of scientists and researchers, all of whom are SGI customers
that exchange and contribute an amazing variety of visualization content
developed on the SGI platform to museums, science centers and educational
outreach institutions., in the United States and/or other countries worldwide.

starcast extragalactic

The planet is a typical member of the Kuiper belt, but its sheer size in
relation to the nine known planets means that it can only be classified as a
planet, Brown said.
"It's definitely bigger than Pluto," said Brown, who is a professor of
planetary astronomy. Scientists can not
yet tell how much light from the sun is reflected away, but the amount of
light the planet reflects puts a lower limit on its size.

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NASA Scientists Discover Tenth Planet

BEIJING and MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif .

The Digital Universe
SGI Professional Services specially created the Digital Universe
application that can be used to run real-time shows and also create new shows. For science accuracy and expertise, SGI collaborated with
Dr.
Indiana University, Dr. With this
feature audiences can make choices about where they wish to go in the Cosmos
and even chose the specific routes they want the presenter to take.

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WASHINGTON, A planet larger than Pluto has been
discovered in the outlying regions of the solar system.gps.

Digital Space Theatre in New Beijing Planetarium Powered by SGI and Zeiss Provides Immersive Hands-On Window to the Universe

Philip Fu and a team of scientists at the Indiana
University.
The interactivity of the SGI Digital Space Theatre means visitors can have
an entirely unique experience. The latest
innovations in automotive and aerospace design , surgical procedures, modeling
of biological molecules or virtual reconstructions of heritage sites can all
be brought into the dome.

shopbell astrophysical

In the last seven months, the scientists have been
studying the planet to better estimate its size and its motions. Because Spitzer is
unable to detect the new planet, the overall diameter must be less than 2,000
miles, said Brown. Arriving on the second floor by escalator, visitors can
see the 200-seat SGI Digital Space Theatre with its 18-meter dome, tilted 15
degrees. The SGI architecture allows the entire dome
display to be controlled from a wireless PDA so that even a child can visit
constellations or tour the galaxies with the press of a button . Presenters are
able to move seamlessly between real-time and playback mode, simulating events
such as eclipses and the passage of comets to create new shows to immerse,
entertain, and educate audiences .

vla digitized

A name for the new planet has been proposed by the discoverers to the
International Astronomical Union, and they are awaiting the decision of this
body before announcing the name.gov/home/index

"The new Beijing Planetarium also includes the Beijing Ancient Observatory
which has eight astronomical instruments from the Qing Dynasty and is located
near the Jian Guo Gate.

spectrograph extragalactic

However , the object was
so far away that its motion was not detected until they reanalyzed the data in
January of this year.

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Through the Virtual Science Network, Beijing
Planetarium audiences will be connected to endless worlds of discovery.

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This will be the first time that visitors will be able to
see visualization of the heliosphere.
To enhance the entertainment and educational value even further, the
planetarium has been equipped with a special interactive digital audience
voting system built into the armrest of each of the 200 seats.

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The reflectance of the planet is not yet known.

shopbell extragalactic

The planet was discovered using the Samuel Oschin Telescope at Palomar
Observatory near San Diego, Calif. Mike Brown of the California Institute of Technology
in Pasadena, Calif., is a leader in high-performance
computing , visualization and storage.com.

ecf qso

In 2002, after intense reviews, the
Beijing Planetarium contracted Silicon Graphics (NYSE: SGI) to build a digital
planetarium solution that would represent a paradigm shift in how planetariums
can become destination spots to educate and entertain visitors. Whether it's sharing images to aid in brain surgery, finding oil
more efficiently, studying global climate , providing technologies for homeland
security and defense, or enabling the transition from analog to digital
broadcasting, SGI is dedicated to addressing the next class of challenges for
scientific , engineering and creative users.

qso supernovae

The size of the planet is limited by observations using NASA 's Spitzer
Space Telescope, which has already proved its mettle in studying the heat of
dim, faint , faraway objects such as the Kuiper-belt bodies.
(Photo: http://www.

sdss usno

"I'd say it's probably one and a half times
the size of Pluto, but we're not sure yet of the final size. Andrew Hanson, Dr. This new world-class planetarium preserves our past
while providing a window to the future," said a Beijing Planetarium
expert/specialist.

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edu/~mbrown

For information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visit:

http://www. In
addition, the Planetarium can be used for special events.

usno elodie

, whose research is partly funded by NASA.caltech., For
an experience that's truly out of this world, visitors to the 2008 Summer
Games will need to go no further than the new Beijing Planetarium. The world's
first digital all-dome laser-projected real-time planetarium is powered by a
Zeiss All Dome Laser Image Projection system driven by SGI(R) Onyx(R)
visualization computers.

NOTE: Silicon Graphics, SGI, Onyx, Reality Center, InfiniteReality, the
SGI cube and the SGI logo are registered trademarks and InfiniteReality3,
InfiniteReality4 and The Source of Innovation and Discovery are trademarks of
Silicon Graphics, Inc.

elodie identifications

"It will be visible with a telescope over the next six months and is
currently almost directly overhead in the early-morning eastern sky, in the
constellation Cetus," said Brown, who made the discovery with colleagues Chad
Trujillo, of the Gemini Observatory in Mauna Kea, Hawaii, and David
Rabinowitz, of Yale University , New Haven, Conn. In the newly opened SGI(R) Digital Space Theatre,
visitors will -- for the first time -- see spectacular high-contrast color
images including more than 37,000 stars, 30,000 galaxies , constellations,
nebulae, planets, spacecraft, and deep space objects.newscom.
Other contributing partners for SGI were Leonard Wickberg III, Hubble
Space Telescope Science Institute, NASA; Brent Tully, University of Hawaii;
University of Queensland; David Malin and the American Museum of Natural
History-New York provided the "Search for Life" show.

faint starcast

SGI's vision is to provide technology
that enables the most significant scientific and creative breakthroughs of the
21st century.
All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective
owners.

starcast isas

For more information see:

http://www.
Located behind the old planetarium, the brand-new dazzling glass building
is 30 meters high, occupying 20 thousand square meters, and has three theaters
and two observatories.sgi.

spectrograph simbad

Brown, Trujillo and Rabinowitz first photographed the new planet with the
48-inch Samuel Oschin Telescope on October 31, 2003.nasa. An additional 3-pipe Onyx system with
InfiniteReality3(TM) graphics is installed in the dome for show development
and pre-show presentations.
"The world's first digital, all-dome-laser-projected, real-time
planetarium is truly spectacular," said Bill La Rosa, senior vice president
and general manager, ICON, SGI.com
650-933-5683

Lingling Zhang
SGI China
ling@sgi.

isas stsci

, on January 8. SGI also provided 580GB of SGI(R) InfiniteStorage
TP9100 and TP900 systems, enough to run two playback and two real-time shows., and can be found on the Web
at http://www.

extragalactic nvss

"Even if it reflected 100 percent of the light reaching it, it would still
be as big as Pluto," says Brown.
"We are 100 percent confident that this is the first object bigger than
Pluto ever found in the outer solar system," Brown added.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050120/SFTH021 )
Since its founding in 1957, the Beijing Planetarium has played a national
role in Chinese astronomical education resulting in many textbooks,
audiovisual aids and scientific works. The heliosphere, roughly twice the size
of the orbit of Pluto, is shown in the dome powering its way smoothly through
interstellar medium and sheltering the solar system from much of its dust and
gases.