Michael E. Brown 



 
 Professor of Planetary Astronomy
 Division of Geological 
        and Planetary Sciences 


    California Institute of
        Technology

The dwarf planet page

All about Eris, the largest (and most massive) dwarf planet

The eight planets: an explanation

(including "Why does Neptune count?")

Get the slides from Mike's public talk on Pluto and Eris


Thoughts on the planet debate

A Requiem for Xena

Find out about 2003 EL61

  A rapidly spinning Pluto-sized football-shaped ice-coated deformed rock in the outer solar system with a family of icy debris around it

Find out about Sedna

The most distant object known in the solar system and the first of a new class of objects beyond the Kuiper belt

Find out about Orcus

Pluto's slightly smaller twin!

Find out about Quaoar

  At the time, the largest object found in the solar system since Pluto's discovery in 1930, but now dwarfed by all of the above

Academic life

  • research activities + CV + publications + teaching

    Local links I use

  • GPS homepage + Caltech astronomy homepage + IPAC + Caltech homepage + SciSearch (remote)

    Links useful to astronomers like me

  • Weather (California) (Hawaii) + journals + simbad + Kuiper Belt Objects (colors) + Lost bets + NASA + ADS abstracts + going observing? + ephemerides + HOBER + papers

    Pretty pictures

  • Space Telescope picture of comet Hyakutake + Keck picture of the rings of Jupiter + Picture of comet Hyakutake rising over the 3-meter dome at Lick Observatory + Voyager picture of a volcano on Io. + Been there + In 3D.

    My alternative lives

  • + Try one of my many policy books + I can design pinball machines! + Is it true? + I've actually met this guy! + Shhhhhhh. Don't tell them. + OK, you found me out + I'm feeling old +

    My family

  • Cammy Thornton + Andy Brown + Tom Brown + Diane Binney + Lilah Binney Brown

    Michael E. Brown
    Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences
    Mail Stop 150-21
    Caltech
    Pasadena, CA
    (626)-395-8423
    fax:
    (626)-585-1917

    mbrown@caltech.edu