Mornin all, Nancy me thinks you've stumped me this time LOL. Haven't a clue.

Annette

Waiting for clues! May tap into Chuck's bank of knowledge, but he is out until 5:00. Me, I got nothing.

Cynthia

Ahhh, not as stumped as you might think!! The nickname is a gimmee!! And when they discovered the planet, one scientific paper's headline said, "It's a girl"!!

Nancy.

Were the astronomers Kenny Rogers fans?

Questions 1 and 4 -- kind of the same. :-)

I've heard of the Oort cloud, but nothing about it is shaking loose.

Other than that, I have nothing.

TM

lol - Dang - I missed that in edit. OK, so only 4 questions. And TM, you actually do have #3!!

Nancy - who is off to scatter seeds!!

I remember reading about this but that information does not come to mind

Chuck has an idea about the Oort cloud.

I have a guess for the nickname thanks to the two clues and Chuck also has a general idea for the pink color.

So, we have guesses for 1, 2, and 3 (well, 4, too, obviously). No idea for 5.

Went to a container workshop today which was fun. The presenter suggested small conifers (small as in 6-12 inches tall) for containers. They looked so cool in the ones she demonstrated. I am eager to plant tomorrow! I plan to plant your seeds, TM! :)

Cynthia

TM, I'm not sure about the Kenny Rogers reference - I may need a clue!!!
Sedna is a common clue in crosswords around here. It is an Inuit goddess - but of what? At the time of it's discovery it was the furthest, coldest place in the heavens. Hmmmm.....

Nancy.

The Kenny Rogers thing was about a lady who was begged not to take her love to town.

I don't remember seeing Sedna used in crosswords in the states, and I do quite a few - mostly the LA Times ones - our local paper runs those. I'll bet she was the goddess of someplace darn cold. Maybe the goddess of winter or of ice maybe.

Sedna made me think of Sedona, which isn't especially cold, but it sure is red. Any connection there, I wonder?

TM

Sorry, no Sedona connection. Ahh, and now I get the Kenny Rogers connection, but I don't think it will help you. I have always been amazed at the flimsy little kayaks that the Innu people use....

Nancy.

Okay, so I am thinking the nickname might be Little Girl? Goes with pink.

We think the Oort cloud is the origin of certain space traveling flashes across the sky.

Is the color due to the gases?

Cynthia

2012 VP113 is a dwarf planet. 7 web sites later I am no closer to figuring out how the letters and numbers are selected. If anyone else figures it out, please let me know. This is a temporary name, and as with it's larger sister, Inuit mythology is being used for this area of space. The nickname, as many nicknames do, comes from the present name, which won't last. To have a planet named after you, you must be long dead, a creature of mythology, or both. It will be a 'wow' moment when you get it!!

Nancy.

Nancy, you could check out the site below, where they explain the provisional naming system. Unfortunately, I have now seen too much and to be fair, I have to bow out of the guessing.

I do see now why you kept dangling the 2012 VP 113 in front of us. :-)

TM

Here is a link that might be useful: Link

A complete guess, maybe it is called Vice President because of the VP or maybe Joe.

Sounds like the Oort Cloud sends out asteroids.

Is Sedna the Goddess of Ice?

I like Cynthia's suggestion of Little Girl.

{{gwi:603423}}

OK TM, I bow to your research skills!! I may have blown by that page, as I scanned Wiki.

1. 2012 VP113 was abbreviated "VP" and nicknamed "Biden" by the discovery team, after Joe Biden, the Vice President (VP) of the United States. It won't be named for him permanently, though, for the above mentioned reasons.

2. Its surface is believed to have a pink tinge, resulting from chemical changes produced by the effect of radiation on frozen water, methane, and carbon dioxide. This optical color is consistent with formation in the gas-giant region and not the classical Kuiper belt, which is dominated by ultra-red colored objects. Older planets become more red, so pink is an indication of it's relative youth.

3. The Oort cloud named after the Dutch astronomer Jan Oort, or ÃÂpik Oort cloud, is a spherical cloud of predominantly icy planetesimals that is believed to surround the Sun at a distance up to nearly a light-year.
Although no confirmed direct observations of the Oort cloud have been made, astronomers argue that it is the source of all long-period and Halley-type comets entering the inner Solar System and many of the centaurs and Jupiter-family comets as well.

4. See #1. ;-)

5. 90377 Sedna is a large planetoid in the outer reaches of the Solar System that was, as of 2012, about three times as far from the Sun as Neptune. Spectroscopy has revealed that Sedna's surface composition is similar to that of some other trans-Neptunian objects (TNO's), being largely a mixture of water, methane and nitrogen ices with tholins. Its surface is one of the reddest in the Solar System. It is probably a dwarf planet. "Our newly discovered object is the coldest most distant place known in the Solar System," said Mike Brown on his website, "so we feel it is appropriate to name it in honor of Sedna, the Inuit goddess of the sea, who is thought to live at the bottom of the frigid Arctic Ocean." Brown also suggested to the International Astronomical Union's (IAU) Minor Planet Center that any future objects discovered in Sedna's orbital region should also be named after entities in arctic mythologies. the self-proclaimed 'Pluto Killer' may have the right, given his discoveries of late.

The above picture is a representation only, of course, for size reference to earth!!

Now, on to the all important issue of stars:
For Bobbie and Cynthia
{{gwi:599307}}
For TM an his research skills
- that was making me crazy that I couldn't find that info.

Sorry about the double question. Not the sharpest tack in the am, I should write them out at night when the research is fresh!!

Thanks for playing - see you all next week, same Bat-station!!

Nancy.

Ha, Chuck's second thought for the color was radiation. Should have gone for that!

Love the Biden nickname. So funny. I have a mug with his face (smiling of course) on it that says "Cup of Joe" which tickles me no end every time I see it.

Fun question. Thanks for the stars. Definitely did not deserve them!

Cynthia

I am interested in astronomy enough to read any info I run across but it appears not enough to actually remember it.

Think I will remember the VP and Biden designations as I figured out from TM's clue enough to get close to the actual answer.

Thanks for the stars, Nancy, proof that a little bit of knowledge is worth a little bit.

Wowser! You went hard-core on us there, Nancy. :-). Lots of meat to sink our teeth into. Good stuff.

Thanks for the fun.

TM

Although I got skunked it's always good to learn something new, now if I can only retain it in the old memory bank :).

Annette