Andy’s Astronomy: The Planet Priplanus

By ANDY KOBER
In 1965, the television series Lost in Space premiered.
Originally filmed and aired in black and white and taking place in 1997, the Robinson family along with a US Space Corps Major and a B-9 environmental control robot are launched into space with the goal of reaching an Earth-like planet orbiting Alpha Centauri.
The mission goes awry quickly as a saboteur sabotages the robot’s controls, but is then trapped on the spacecraft during launch. His weight, along with the robot smashing the spacecraft’s controls, sends it off course and – as the name implies – lost in space.
The spacecraft, Jupiter 2, crashes onto the surface of a planet identified as Priplanus. The entire first season of the series deals with the castaways living on Priplanus.
Alpha Centauri is real. It is a three-star system that includes Rigil Kentaurus, Toliman, and Proxima Centauri, and visible to the unaided eye. Proxima Centauri is the closest to Earth, at a distance of just over four light-years. It is a faint red dwarf that cannot be seen with the unaided eye.
Interestingly, Proxima Centauri has two orbiting planets and one is in the “habitable zone”. Rigil Kentaurus may have an orbiting planet in the “habital zone” as well and is reported to be about the size of Saturn.
The planet Priplanus does not exist, and how the name came about is unknown. Further, while the planet was identified, the star it orbited never was.
Changing to what is real, our favorite amateur astronomer, Ms. Lynn, notes that on Mar. 31, 2005, astronomers Michael Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David Rabinowitz discovered the dwarf planet Makemake, located in the Kuiper Belt. The astronomers were working at the Palomar Observatory in California. To date, Makemake is the largest dwarf planet to have been discovered in the Kuiper Belt.
Keep your eyes on the sky for passing fireballs.
Meteors can flash across the sky anytime, day or night, and extraordinarily bright meteors are often referred to as fireballs — and they are spotted quite often.
On Monday, Mar. 16, 222 people across Delaware, District of Columbia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin, West Virginia, and Ontario, Canada reported seeing a fireball.
The fireball was first reported at 9:01 am by a skywatcher in Olmstead Falls, Ohio. The fireball was seen as far north as Saginaw, MI, as far east as Tabernacle, NJ, as far south as Gibsonville, NC, and as far west as Geneseo, IL. The fireball appeared to be travelling from north to south.
Twelve people reported hearing the fireball make noise as it passed and 19 reported seeing it fragment into smaller pieces. The fireball was captured on five still pictures and five videos.
Anyone seeing a fireball is urged to report the sighting to https://amsmeteors.org/fireballs/fireball-report/
We will continue researching planets found in science fiction soon. In the meantime going outside and looking at the sky, especially the night sky, can be fun and educational for the entire family.
There are a number of free apps available to help identify stars and constellations, and some of the apps will show satellites.
Happy skywatching!