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A team of astronauts spotted Eris during a Palomar Observatory survey of the outer solar system.
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Micheal E Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David L Rabinowtiz found Eris in space. They also figured out that Eris is further away from us then Pluto is.
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Eris became nicknamed "Xena" from The Warrior Princess, which was a popular TV show around the time that Eris was found.
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They announced the discovery of Eris on the same day as the other dwarf planets Makemake and two days after Haumea.
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Eris is a dwarf planet because it failed to meet a few requirements on the criteria. One of the requirements were clearing out the orbit. Eris did not clear put it's orbit.
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They officially named this new dwarf planet to Eris. The name Eris came from the Greek goddess of strife and discord.
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Eris passed a dim star, astronauts measured how long the star disappeared behind Eris and from that, they calculated the width of Eris.
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They found out that Eris is smaller than Pluto. Even though Eris is more massive, it's smaller by area, size, mass, and density.
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They figured out that Eris has an extremely reflective surface. Even though it's far away, Eris is still one of the most reflective objects in space and close to Enceladus (Saturn's moon)
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They collected new data of Eris, and they figured out that Eris takes 560.9 years to orbit the sun.
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