Eris could not clear out its neighborhood

Now that the Kuiper belt object that caused Pluto to get booted out has been named ("Eris", after a goddess who caused a ruckus amongst the Olympians), you may find it poignant to go back and read the requiem written by Michael Brown, its discoverer soon after the astronomers' decision about Pluto. He does support the decision even though that meant he didn't get his name in the history books as the discoverer of the 10th planet.

Incidentally, his explanation about "a planet clearing out the neighborhood" helped me conceptualize one way to identify local maxima in radar images. This technique is now used to identify storms so as to optimize scan strategy [long PDF] within the CASA radar network. It's amazing how totally random an idea's origins can be, with a phrase triggering all sorts of associations.

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