"semi-naked painting has fascinated critics"
Art Neuendorffer
---------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/1005/1005danbrown.htm
----------------------------------------------------------------
If Dan Brown is right... By Michael Moriarty
web posted October 10, 2005
I feel so sorry for Tom Hanks. I've met the man twice, once at an
awards ceremony in New York where he was unexpectedly generous toward
me and my talent while he was onstage; then again at the Emmy Awards at
which I won Best Supporting Actor for my performance in James Dean: An
Invented Life. At this second meeting, I was still drinking, so I
wasn't entirely up to par, so to speak. While walking with Steven
Spielberg, he said firmly, "Michael, take care of yourself."
Well, Hanks is about to appear in The Da Vinci Code, a screenplay based
on Dan Brown's revelation of the entire Priory of Sion and its
goddess-worshipping cult. Hanks plays a doltish intellectual professor
who hooks up with a French woman - the descendent of the Grand Master
of an 800-year-old secret society. Hanks' character is like the CIA,
meaning he has all the information but no idea what to do with it. His
sidekick knows with increasing accuracy, as she surrenders to the
acceptance of her female divinity, exactly where to go in order to
defend herself and her partner from the ignorant tyranny of the
Catholic Church.
Except for The Terminal, Hanks' own instincts in making the proper
acting choices and choosing the right scripts have been so unerringly
on the mark that it's a marvel to watch him. He is, dear readers,
exactly what he was in his comedies, and as he revealed a part of
himself in his portrayal of Forrest Gump and in the brilliantly
compassionate performance he gave in Philadelphia: he is America's most
romantic soul on the silver screen. Hanks' soul is as perfect a one as
can be found in Hollywood these days.
Unfortunately, urged on by Spielberg and Ron Howard, Hanks will be the
mascot of the newly established Clinton Global Initiative (CGI). With
the worldwide release of The Da Vinci Code, he'll be assured of an
Academy Award nomination, but his co-star Audrey Tautou will win the
coveted "gold." This will help to ensure Hillary Clinton's election as
President of the United States.
Hanks gives much of his free time to space exploration. His commitment
to the space program is so obviously the right answer to a "Population
Problem." In a few millennia, humanity will have to leave the earth as
chicks leave the nest. So, instead of CGI's Scientific Intellectual
Supremacists taking fetal tissue, like gold from the teeth of Holocaust
victims, and pretending to cure disease when their real aim is to
cross-clone and, through adult human experimentation, design a better
human race, Hanks sees the obvious imperative that, like all of life in
nature, we must go out into space to bring life to a dead universe.
The Hitlerian dream of the Master Race echoes in CGI, inspired by
eugenics and the teachings of Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned
Parenthood, which propagates abortion, euthanasia and a "classless"
society.
If Brown is right, then Leonardo Da Vinci is the first Anti-Christ.
That artist's atheism and use of goddess-worshipping symbols in his art
is the exact antithesis to Judeo-Christian civilization. Forever a
patriarchy, Judeo-Christianity can only be defeated by a matriarchy. In
Brown's analysis, the famous Madonna of the Rocks painting that
portrays the Virgin Mary, her sister and the Baby Jesus together is Da
Vinci's tribute to his idea of the real power on earth: the Mother. Not
the baby Jesus. Christ was nothing but a big, selfishly insane baby who
has done more to ruin the world than anyone else. The biblically
recorded ingratitude of Christ before his mother when He tells her
"those who aren't with me are against me" is proof positive, to Brown's
Da Vinci at any rate, that the Messiah's teachings were the worst thing
that ever happened to the human race. With the feminist author Ashley
Montague's advice to us that a woman is something all men must cling to
for survival, the masterpiece is being completed.
It is predicted that the devil's arrival on earth will be Luciferian, a
light-filled angel so brilliant it will stun the human race for
centuries. What mind of the greatest Judeo-Christian Renaissance, that
of 16th-Century Italy, could more completely fulfill the prophecy than
Da Vinci's? None. A mere glimpse at his all-encompassing intellectual
achievements will convince you of that.
In the Book of Revelations, there is, following the arrival of this
Divine Beast, a "Preacher," a proselytizer, one who would spread the
word of the Anti-Christ. He would also pose as a Christian.
Which man, posing as a Christian, a "Progressive Southern Baptist,"
rose to a height of power no man on earth had ever attained before?
That man is William J. Clinton. As a Da Vinci "goddess-worshipper," he
chose to protect his wife Hillary with every lie he can muster in order
to make her President of the United States. (Let us remember that
Lucifer is known as the Emperor of Lies.) I fear that Senator Hillary
Clinton will win the presidential election in 2008, and that she will
drag all of humanity to the Apocalypse.
No, Armageddon cannot be far off. Here it is, arriving in what will be
one of the most bizarre inaugurations and installments of a
megalomaniacal "goddess" that the world has ever seen.
Hillary Clinton will prove conclusively that a female leader can be as
horrid as any male. An undeniable truth will be engraved in the human
consciousness: a human intellect without any humility or gratitude is
the essence of evil, and a government without God to answer to brings
hell itself to the human race!
Finally, with the Reverend Billy Graham turning his congregation of the
religious right over to the leadership of the Clintons, saying that the
former President should be an evangelist and his wife the next
President, the hypocrisy that has riddled Christian institutions will
be revealed. This heinous marriage between a preacher of the
Anti-Christ and a corrupt ex-President of the United States was
pre-ordained when Pope Pius XII signed his Concordat with Adolf Hitler
and Benito Mussolini. However, the body count from this agreement
between Graham and the Clintons will be far greater. Tens of millions
of human beings have already been butchered in the womb, hundreds of
thousands of others are dead or dying in Africa from the cold-blooded,
criminal neglect of the United Nations. It is all done in the name of
solving the "Population Problem."
An aside on Michelangelo
As the Anti-Christ arrived in the little town of Vinci, Italy, so did a
soldier of the Holy Ghost: Michelangelo Buonorotti came to serve his
Lord in full measure. For up to 15 hours a day, this man lay on his
back, elevated by scaffolding, to paint the story of the Bible. No
laborer, from the slaves who erected the Pyramids to the most
industrious union man of the present day, could endure the unrelenting
physical exertion it took Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the
Sistine Chapel. In his humility and divine gratitude to his Creator,
Michelangelo with his brush created the very sword that will bring down
the Anti-Christ. Visitors to the Sistine Chapel know that Truth was
born in the Bible.
Michael Moriarty is a Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning actor who has
appeared in the landmark television series Law and Order, the
mini-series Taken, and the TV-movie The 4400. He is now filming Pick Me
Up, an episode of the Showtime TV series Masters of Horror, in
Vancouver.
----------------------------------------------------
lariadna
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/4344512.stm
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/1005/1005danbrown.htm
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
> If Dan Brown is right... By Michael Moriarty
> web posted October 10, 2005
>
> I feel so sorry for Tom Hanks. I've met the man twice, once at an
> awards ceremony in New York where he was unexpectedly generous toward
> me and my talent while he was onstage; then again at the Emmy Awards at
> which I won Best Supporting Actor for my performance in James Dean: An
> Invented Life. At this second meeting, I was still drinking, so I
> wasn't entirely up to par, so to speak. While walking with Steven
> Spielberg, he said firmly, "Michael, take care of yourself."
>
> Well, Hanks is about to appear in The Da Vinci Code, a screenplay based
> on Dan Brown's revelation of the entire Priory of Sion and its
> goddess-worshipping cult. Hanks plays a doltish intellectual professor
> who hooks up with a French woman - the descendent of the Grand Master
> of an 800-year-old secret society. Hanks' character is like the CIA,
> meaning he has all the information but no idea what to do with it. His
> sidekick knows with increasing accuracy, as she surrenders to the
> acceptance of her female divinity, exactly where to go in order to
> defend herself and her partner from the ignorant tyranny of the
> Catholic Church.
>
I can't tell if the author of this article is being flippant or not.
I hope he is, because if not, I think he is overreacting. I've not
read 'The DaVinci Code', but I read (very quickly) 'Angels and
Demons', and you'd have to really be incredulous to believe that
any of it was factual except for maybe some historical sites and a
few other facts--it's clearly a fantasy, written like an adventure
story with cartoon-like characters, I'm guessing deliberately.
I wouldn't recommend that the Pope read it, because that might be
bad for his health, but it really didn't strike me as being
anti-Catholic, just full of stories about the Illuminati and
their relationship to the Catholic church. (And I don't know the truth
of those stories or about the claims he makes that Galileo and
various Italian artists were members of the Illuminati, but I'm
certainly not going to assume they are true--alas, probably a lot of
people will.)
> Except for The Terminal, Hanks' own instincts in making the proper
> acting choices and choosing the right scripts have been so unerringly
> on the mark that it's a marvel to watch him. He is, dear readers,
> exactly what he was in his comedies, and as he revealed a part of
> himself in his portrayal of Forrest Gump and in the brilliantly
> compassionate performance he gave in Philadelphia: he is America's most
> romantic soul on the silver screen. Hanks' soul is as perfect a one as
> can be found in Hollywood these days.
>
I don't know about that--I thought 'Private Ryan', while good, was
not perfect...
> Unfortunately, urged on by Spielberg and Ron Howard, Hanks will be the
> mascot of the newly established Clinton Global Initiative (CGI). With
> the worldwide release of The Da Vinci Code, he'll be assured of an
> Academy Award nomination, but his co-star Audrey Tautou will win the
> coveted "gold." This will help to ensure Hillary Clinton's election as
> President of the United States.
Bit of a jump here..
>
> Hanks gives much of his free time to space exploration. His commitment
> to the space program is so obviously the right answer to a "Population
> Problem." In a few millennia, humanity will have to leave the earth as
> chicks leave the nest. So, instead of CGI's Scientific Intellectual
> Supremacists taking fetal tissue, like gold from the teeth of Holocaust
> victims, and pretending to cure disease when their real aim is to
> cross-clone and, through adult human experimentation, design a better
> human race, Hanks sees the obvious imperative that, like all of life in
> nature, we must go out into space to bring life to a dead universe.
>
> The Hitlerian dream of the Master Race echoes in CGI, inspired by
> eugenics and the teachings of Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned
> Parenthood, which propagates abortion, euthanasia and a "classless"
> society.
>
Just 'slighly' extreme here?
> If Brown is right, then Leonardo Da Vinci is the first Anti-Christ.
> That artist's atheism and use of goddess-worshipping symbols in his art
> is the exact antithesis to Judeo-Christian civilization. Forever a
> patriarchy, Judeo-Christianity can only be defeated by a matriarchy. In
> Brown's analysis, the famous Madonna of the Rocks painting that
> portrays the Virgin Mary, her sister and the Baby Jesus together is Da
> Vinci's tribute to his idea of the real power on earth: the Mother. Not
> the baby Jesus. Christ was nothing but a big, selfishly insane baby who
> has done more to ruin the world than anyone else. The biblically
> recorded ingratitude of Christ before his mother when He tells her
> "those who aren't with me are against me" is proof positive, to Brown's
> Da Vinci at any rate, that the Messiah's teachings were the worst thing
> that ever happened to the human race. With the feminist author Ashley
> Montague's advice to us that a woman is something all men must cling to
> for survival, the masterpiece is being completed.
But Mary is part of Christianity. I don't recall her claiming to
be part of a matriarchy that would defeat patriarchy. She seems rather
humble actually. Such fears seem absurd to me.
>
> It is predicted that the devil's arrival on earth will be Luciferian, a
> light-filled angel so brilliant it will stun the human race for
> centuries. What mind of the greatest Judeo-Christian Renaissance, that
> of 16th-Century Italy, could more completely fulfill the prophecy than
> Da Vinci's? None. A mere glimpse at his all-encompassing intellectual
> achievements will convince you of that.
Myths about DaVinci, I suppose. Let's not let this stuff
scare us.
>
> In the Book of Revelations, there is, following the arrival of this
> Divine Beast, a "Preacher," a proselytizer, one who would spread the
> word of the Anti-Christ. He would also pose as a Christian.
>
> Which man, posing as a Christian, a "Progressive Southern Baptist,"
> rose to a height of power no man on earth had ever attained before?
> That man is William J. Clinton. As a Da Vinci "goddess-worshipper," he
> chose to protect his wife Hillary with every lie he can muster in order
> to make her President of the United States. (Let us remember that
> Lucifer is known as the Emperor of Lies.) I fear that Senator Hillary
> Clinton will win the presidential election in 2008, and that she will
> drag all of humanity to the Apocalypse.
I doubt that Hillary Clinton, if she did win, would be much different
from her husband politically.
>
> No, Armageddon cannot be far off. Here it is, arriving in what will be
> one of the most bizarre inaugurations and installments of a
> megalomaniacal "goddess" that the world has ever seen.
Which megalomaniacal goddess? Is he still thinking about Hillary?
>
> Hillary Clinton will prove conclusively that a female leader can be as
> horrid as any male. An undeniable truth will be engraved in the human
> consciousness: a human intellect without any humility or gratitude is
> the essence of evil, and a government without God to answer to brings
> hell itself to the human race!
Well, it's possible that a female leader might be as horrid as a male,
or it's possible not. Depends on the female and male that you're
talking about. Hillary would probably be an improvement over some
leaders I can think of.
>
> Finally, with the Reverend Billy Graham turning his congregation of the
> religious right over to the leadership of the Clintons, saying that the
> former President should be an evangelist and his wife the next
> President, the hypocrisy that has riddled Christian institutions will
> be revealed. This heinous marriage between a preacher of the
> Anti-Christ and a corrupt ex-President of the United States was
> pre-ordained when Pope Pius XII signed his Concordat with Adolf Hitler
> and Benito Mussolini. However, the body count from this agreement
> between Graham and the Clintons will be far greater. Tens of millions
> of human beings have already been butchered in the womb, hundreds of
> thousands of others are dead or dying in Africa from the cold-blooded,
> criminal neglect of the United Nations. It is all done in the name of
> solving the "Population Problem."
I'm lost.
C.
lariadna
>you'd have to really be incredulous to believe that
>any of it was factual
Sorry--credulous, not incredulous.
C.
Bianca Steele
> I can't tell if the author of this article is being flippant or not.
> I hope he is, because if not, I think he is overreacting. I've not
> read 'The DaVinci Code', but I read (very quickly) 'Angels and
> Demons',
I also have read only Angels and Demons, and I'm surprised at what he
says about the main characters in The Da Vinci Code, if that's true.
>and you'd have to really be incredulous to believe that
> any of it was factual except for maybe some historical sites and a
> few other facts--it's clearly a fantasy, written like an adventure
> story with cartoon-like characters, I'm guessing deliberately.
>
> I wouldn't recommend that the Pope read it, because that might be
> bad for his health, but it really didn't strike me as being
> anti-Catholic, just full of stories about the Illuminati and
> their relationship to the Catholic church.
Doesn't Brown say he had an audience with Pope John Paul II when he was
working on the book? I assumed it was considered anti-Catholic when I
got a dirty look while I was carrying it to the front of the store, but
on the other hand, it seems like many or even most of the readers of
The Da Vinci Code are Catholics themselves.
> (And I don't know the truth
> of those stories or about the claims he makes that Galileo and
> various Italian artists were members of the Illuminati, but I'm
> certainly not going to assume they are true--alas, probably a lot of
> people will.)
Obviously they weren't orthodox Catholics, but you're right, that
doesn't mean they must have been Illuminati. I think it's obvious that
Brown, as a modern college-educated person, sides with the Illuminati
against orthodox religion, and as you say, kind of wishes they might
really exist.
The book struck me, actually, as either very cynical or very innocently
positive about religion, and the TV interview I saw confirmed my
impression that it was all drawn from what art historians consider
reasonably authoritative -- at least except for the Priory of Sion
stuff. I assume that even for that Brown avoided sources like this
piece Art posted here, and stuck to sources previous scholars had
endorsed. He seemed to tend toward Mr. Innes's style of British
eclecticism, especially on points like John in the Last Supper really
being Magdalene. I would guess that he was educated to consider
Christianity and Christian iconography essential parts of Western
culture, and to accept what university-employed authorities told him
about that culture, and to use the standards of research those same
authorities had taught him.
Thanks for your input. It's helpful to know what a Catholic thinks
about it.
----
Bianca Steele
lariadna
> lariadna wrote:
> > I can't tell if the author of this article is being flippant or not.
> > I hope he is, because if not, I think he is overreacting. I've not
> > read 'The DaVinci Code', but I read (very quickly) 'Angels and
> > Demons',
>
> I also have read only Angels and Demons, and I'm surprised at what he
> says about the main characters in The Da Vinci Code, if that's true.
>
> >and you'd have to really be incredulous to believe that
> > any of it was factual except for maybe some historical sites and a
> > few other facts--it's clearly a fantasy, written like an adventure
> > story with cartoon-like characters, I'm guessing deliberately.
> >
> > I wouldn't recommend that the Pope read it, because that might be
> > bad for his health, but it really didn't strike me as being
> > anti-Catholic, just full of stories about the Illuminati and
> > their relationship to the Catholic church.
>
> Doesn't Brown say he had an audience with Pope John Paul II when he was
> working on the book?
He says on his website that he had a group audience with Pope John
Paul II. I don't know if the Pope knew that he was there.
> I assumed it was considered anti-Catholic when I
> got a dirty look while I was carrying it to the front of the store,
I've given up trying to figure out why people give dirty looks!
> but on the other hand, it seems like many or even most of the
> readers of The Da Vinci Code are Catholics themselves.
I looked up more information about Da Vinci Code on the web, and
it seems that that book is much more controversial than the
Angels and Demons. I think the book does imply that the church
was guilty of a cover-up, anyhow.
And I saw some websites that were quite outrageous, for example,
one mentioning how the Antichrist would be one of the descendents
of the Merovingian Dynasty, so I can see where the author of the
above article might get his ideas.
>
> > (And I don't know the truth
> > of those stories or about the claims he makes that Galileo and
> > various Italian artists were members of the Illuminati, but I'm
> > certainly not going to assume they are true--alas, probably a lot of
> > people will.)
>
> Obviously they weren't orthodox Catholics, but you're right, that
> doesn't mean they must have been Illuminati. I think it's obvious that
> Brown, as a modern college-educated person, sides with the Illuminati
> against orthodox religion, and as you say, kind of wishes they might
> really exist.
>
It seems that Brown really does believe in it, but doesn't necessarily
expect his readers to do so (This is a DVC page, but I assume he
thinks similarly about the Illuminati):
<http://www.danbrown.com/novels/davinci_code/faqs.html>
> The book struck me, actually, as either very cynical or very innocently
> positive about religion,
Yes, it seemed to strike a neutral middle of the road there--the
focus was more on the action.
> and the TV interview I saw confirmed my
> impression that it was all drawn from what art historians consider
> reasonably authoritative -- at least except for the Priory of Sion
> stuff. I assume that even for that Brown avoided sources like this
> piece Art posted here, and stuck to sources previous scholars had
> endorsed. He seemed to tend toward Mr. Innes's style of British
> eclecticism, especially on points like John in the Last Supper really
> being Magdalene. I would guess that he was educated to consider
> Christianity and Christian iconography essential parts of Western
> culture, and to accept what university-employed authorities told him
> about that culture, and to use the standards of research those same
> authorities had taught him.
To tell the truth, I know very little about what is accurate and
what not, but as I said, I don't assume anything, because I have
heard that a lot of it is not well-supported.
There was one interesting thing in A&D just briefly mentioned
that someone on this newgroup might know about--it was implied
that iambic pentameter had something to do with the Illuminati,
but I think that iambic pentameter had been around long before.
C.
Chess One
"Bianca Steele" <bianca...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1129681222....@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
I didn't know I thought that. My sort of British, or even Hebrew,
eclecticism seems to be very similar to the American Dr. Pagels from
Princeton.
As a series of esoterica Brown's book is merely 'pop' esoterica, indicating
things which might deserve study - and all rather combined with a
Dumas-esque quality, rushing through the French countryside to private
Chateau where sages live. As a type, the Spanish writer Reverte does it
better.
Seems to me the book kindles interest about what is speculated upon rather
than representing deeper studies of the subjects addressed.
As a novel about the mysteries, it had no duende. It was also not very
British - better to have speculated upon Tradescant's objects in the
Ashmolean, or even the Author;-
...And take upon's the mystery of things
As if we were God's spies; and we'll wear out
In a walled prison, pacts and sects of great ones
That ebb and flow by th'moon
/King Lear, v:2
Which is fair cerebration of nonsense overheard muttered by wild people
ranging without, or rather on our reliance in providing their rebuke within.
;)
Cordially, Phil Innes
lariadna
Mary Magdalene? Is there a label, or is this the way she has been
painted in other works?
C.
Bianca Steele
Oh yeah -- actually not a label but a script -- the first words anybody
ever heard out of her mouth were:
Would you like to have fun?
How's about a few laughs?
I can show you a ... ... good time,
Let me show you a ... ... good time.
----
Bianca Steele
Art Neuendorffer
>> I wonder, how do they know for sure that the lady in the painting is
>> Mary Magdalene? Is there a label, or is this the way she has been
>> painted in other works?
Bianca Steele wrote:
> Oh yeah -- actually not a label but a script -- the first words
> anybody ever heard out of her mouth were:
>
> Would you like to have fun?
> How's about a few laughs?
> I can show you a ... ... good time,
> Let me show you a ... ... good time.
Said like a real pro, Bianca.
Art N.
lariadna
Well, I guess Leonardo liked it... or maybe he just liked analyzing
the shape of bods.
In any case, it seems that she could be Venus just as well as
Magdalene.
C.
> ----
> Bianca Steele
David L. Webb
"Art Neuendorffer" <aneuendor...@comcast.net>
(aneuendor...@comicass.nut) wrote:
You'll love this, Art:
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/spanish/misc/newsid_4366000/4366422.stm>.
[...]
Art Neuendorffer
>
> <http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/spanish/misc/newsid_4366000/4366422.stm>.
-------------------------------------------------------------
PROPIEDAD INTELECTUAL
REDUPLICATE PLANETOID
-------------------------------------------------------------
Tenth Planet Has a Moon
http://www.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/planetlila/moon/index.html
Date Released: Saturday, October 1, 2005
Source: California Institute of Technology
PASADENA, Calif. --The newly discovered 10th planet, 2003 UB313, is
looking more and more like one of the solar system's major players.
It has the heft of a real planet (latest estimates put it at about
20 percent larger than Pluto), a catchy code name (Xena, after the
TV warrior princess), and a Guinness Book-ish record of its own (at
about 97 astronomical units-or 9 billion miles from the sun-it is
the solar system's farthest detected object). And, astronomers
from the California Institute of Technology and their colleagues
have now discovered, it has a moon.
The moon, 100 times fainter than Xena & orbiting the planet once every
couple of weeks, was spotted on September 10, 2005, with the 10-meter
Keck II telescope at the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii by Michael E.
Brown, professor of planetary astronomy, & his colleagues at Caltech,
the Keck Observatory, Yale Univ., & the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii.
"Since the day we discovered Xena, the big question has been whether
or not it has a moon," says Brown. "Having a moon is just inherently
cool-and it is something that most self-respecting planets have,
so it is good to see that this one does too."
Brown estimates that the moon, nicknamed "Gabrielle"
- after the fictional Xena's fictional sidekick -
is at least one-tenth of the size of Xena, which is thought
to be about 2700 km in diameter (Pluto is 2274 km),
and may be around 250 km across.
Further observations of the moon with the Hubble Space Telescope,
planned for November and December, will allow Brown and his colleagues
to pin down Gabrielle's exact orbit around Xena. With that data, they
will be able to calculate Xena's mass, using a formula first devised
some 300 years ago by Isaac Newton.
The researchers discovered Gabrielle using Keck II's recently
commissioned Laser Guide Star Adaptive Optics system. The new laser
guide star system allows researchers to create an artificial "star"
by bouncing a laser beam off a layer of the atmosphere about 75 miles
above the ground. Bright stars located near the object of interest
are used as the reference point for the adaptive optics corrections.
Since no bright stars are naturally found near Xena, adaptive optics
imaging would have been impossible without the laser system.
The new system also allowed Brown and his colleagues to observe a
small moon in January around 2003 EL61, code-named "Santa," another
large new Kuiper Belt object. No moon was spotted around 2005 FY9-or
"Easterbunny"-the third of the three big Kuiper Belt objects recently
discovered by Brown and his colleagues using the 48-inch Samuel Oschin
Telescope at Palomar Observatory. But the presence of moons around
three of the Kuiper Belt's four largest objects-Xena, Santa,
and Pluto-challenges conventional ideas about how worlds
in this region of the solar system acquire satellites.
Researchers had believed that Kuiper Belt objects obtained moons
through a process called gravitational capture, in which two formerly
separate objects moved too close to one another and become entrapped in
each other's gravitational embrace. This was thought to be true of the
Kuiper Belt's small denizens-but not, however, of Pluto. Pluto's
massive, closely orbiting moon, Charon, broke off the planet billions
of years ago, after it was smashed by another Kuiper Belt object.
Xena's & Santa's moons appear best explained by a similar origin.>>
-------------------------------------------------------------
Art Neuendorffer