What are the names of the new planets in our solar system?
Under the present IAU definition we only have 8 planets in our Solar System, the same ones we had at the turn of the 20th century (1900): Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. The IAU created another category of solar system object called “dwarf planet”. This category currently includes Ceres (in the Main Asteroid Belt), Pluto, Eris, Makemake and Haumea. In time other bodies may be added to the dwarf planet group, such as Sedna, Quaoar, etc. Eris, Makemake and Haumea are the 3 large-ish objects in the trans-Neptunian region whose existence was announced in July 2005 (then called 2003 UB313 or Xena, 2005 FY9 or Easter Bunny and 2003 EL61 or Santa). 2003 UB313, 2005 FY9 and 2003 EL61 are standard provisional designations for objects in a system originally agreed by the IAU in 1925. The names ‘Xena’, ‘Easter Bunny’ and ‘Santa’ were working names for the objects bestowed by the group headed by Mike Brown.
