Yes, Kowal refers to Charles Kowal. He took photographic plates of Quaoar in the early 80's while looking for planet-X. The plates were used by Brown & Trujillo of Caltech in 2002 to determine Quaoar's current location. Now as to what is a planet?; many Trans-Neptunian Astrologers are already using Sedna, Quaoar, Ixion, Varuna, etc in their charts & what have you...if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me! Just kidding by the way. Dave On Tuesday, May 11, 2004, at 11:19 AM, Chuck Hards wrote:
Brent, I've either never heard of it (Very possible) or forgotten what it was (highly likely). Named after Charles Kowal, I'm guessing?
What I wanted to say is that apparently Dr. Bromley's criteria seem heavily skewed in favor of defending the "classical" planetary definition.
Once you start tossing-in formation criteria then the whole thing is blown wide-open, unnecessarily. I'd be willing to bet that there are thousands of ways that planets are made; thus my reluctance to take a stand this early in the evolution of human understanding. Especially when you use only one detailed example to build your model from.
--- Brent Watson <brentjwatson@yahoo.com> wrote:
Then, how about Object Kowal? (It may have a different name now, but that is what it was called when it was discovered.)
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