[It is likely to bolster claims for the body to be given planet status.

On the other hand, it will also give support to those who believe Pluto has an inflated position and should be downgraded to a more minor classification.
Last Updated: Wednesday, 1 February 2006, 18:26 GMT

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Distant world tops Pluto for size
By Jonathan Amos
BBC News science reporter

At 3,000km (1,860 miles), the object is significantly bigger than Pluto
An icy, rocky world reported last year to be orbiting the Sun in the distant reaches of the Solar System really is bigger than Pluto, scientists say.

New observations of the object, which goes by the designation 2003 UB313, show it to have a diameter of some 3,000km - about 700km more than Pluto.

The measurement was undertaken by a German team using a telescope in Spain, and is published in the journal Nature.

It is likely to bolster claims for the body to be given planet status.

On the other hand, it will also give support to those who believe Pluto has an inflated position and should be downgraded to a more minor classification.

Perhaps we should just sit back and relax and see what else is discovered out there in the near future

Prof Iwan Williams, Queen Mary University of London
"I'm easy on this," said the Nature paper's lead author, Professor Frank Bertoldi, from the University of Bonn and the Max-Planck-Institute for Radioastronomy.

"I would not want to demote Pluto for historical and cultural reasons - you'd upset the schoolchildren. So, it seems only fair to call objects larger than Pluto planets as well. I think we could cope," he told the BBC News website.

Icy belt

Like Pluto, 2003 UB313 orbits beyond Neptune in a region known as the Kuiper Belt.

Scientists think there are probably many tens of thousands of freezing bodies in this ring of debris left over from the formation of the Solar System.

The Iram 30m telescope is sited in the south of Spain
But 2003 UB313 is the first to be identified with a girth that exceeds Pluto's.]

So, ok UB313 is larger than Pluto. Regardless of it's size are we to count these renegades of the Kuiper Belt as Planets? Or only if they cross the orbit of Neptune?

Regardless of status, I think Xena for 2003 UB 313 is fitting... with the recent launch of New Horizons to Pluto discovered by Clyde Tombaugh using the Percivall Lowell Observatory, when looking for planet 'X'.

What about the renegade/escapé, Sedna from the Oort Cloud. Will Sedna be considered a planet as well?