NOVA ScienceNOW

The National Science Foundation

NOVA Science Trust Logo

the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

<div class="rich-text"><p>
	In this video clip, Caltech's Mike Brown describes the eureka moment he had on the morning of January 5, 2005 when he discovered the 10th planet. The moment he realized what he was looking at, "it blew me out of my chair," he says. Brown also explains why the new body has to be larger than Pluto.</p>
</div>

Michael Brown knew instantly the object he discovered in 2005 was a planet. In this video clip, he explains how.

<div class="rich-text">Michael Brown knew instantly the object he discovered in 2005 was a planet. In this video clip, he explains how.</div>

Michael Brown knew instantly the object he discovered in 2005 was a planet.

Video Short: Found It!

Found It!

Space & Flight

<div class="rich-text"><h3>
 FOUND IT!
</h3>
<p>
 Posted: January 1, 2006
</p>
<p>
<em>
  MICHAEL BROWN
 </em>
 (Caltech's Planetary Astronomy Group): It was morning, January 5th, 2005. I was clicking buttons and that one picture came out that just blew me out of my chair. I sat there, stared at it for a second and then grabbed my phone, called my wife, told her that I found the 10th planet.
</p>
<p>
 Mostly everywhere in the sky we see things like stars and we see things like galaxies that are stationary in respect to each other in the sky. And every once in a while we see a very slow moving object going across the sky. And when we saw this one, we knew we had found something both very big and very far away. We could tell it's far away because it is moving very slowly. As we look over the sky in the course of our survey we find many, many thousands of asteroids, and they would be moving. Instead of going over the course of three hours going from here, to here, to here, they would go from here, to here, down to here, because there are so many that are moving so fast.
</p>
<p>
 It has to be larger than Pluto and the way we know that is because even if it's a small, bright object reflecting all of the sunlight that strikes it, to be this bright and this far away, it still has to be bigger than Pluto.
</p></div>

United States

Northern Mariana Islands

Puerto Rico

American Samoa

Guam

U.S. Virgin Islands

U.S. Minor Outlying Islands

US & Territories

<p>Colossal explosions shake a remote corner of the Siberian tundra, leaving behind massive craters. In Alaska, a huge lake erupts with bubbles of inflammable gas. Scientists are discovering that these mystifying phenomena add up to a ticking time bomb, as long-frozen permafrost melts and releases vast amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. What are the implications of these dramatic developments in the Arctic? Scientists and local communities alike are struggling to grasp the scale of the methane threat and what it means for our climate future. <b>(Premiered February 2, 2022)</b></p>

<p>In the Arctic, enormous releases of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, threaten the climate.</p>

Arctic Sinkholes

The top half of Jupiter in blue and green against a night sky

A composite image of Jupiter using images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Jupiter ERS Team; image processing by Judy Schmidt.

<p>Explore the cosmos, delve into ancient history, and follow an extreme rescue with NOVA’s most-watched documentaries released in 2022.</p>

NOVA’s most popular science documentaries of 2022

Four bright orange loops brand off of a dark blue blob

A transmission electron micrograph of HIV-1 virus particles (orange) replicating from the plasma membrane of an infected H9 T cell. Credit: NIAID, Flickr

<p>Scientists have cured a handful of people of HIV by piggybacking on treatments they received for blood cancer. But does that bring a widespread cure any closer?</p>

Transcript

Credits

Support Provided By