Name Chad Trujillo | Role Astronomer | |
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Education Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Hawaii at Manoa Similar People David L Rabinowitz, Scott S Sheppard, Michael E Brown, David C Jewitt, Jane Luu | ||
Chad Trujillo | Wikipedia audio article
Chadwick A. "Chad" Trujillo (born November 22, 1973) is an American astronomer, discoverer of minor planets and the co-discoverer of Eris, the most massive dwarf planet known in the Solar System.
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Trujillo works with computer software and has examined the orbits of the numerous trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs), which is the outer area of the Solar System that he specialized in. In late August 2005, it was announced that Trujillo, along with Michael E. Brown and David L. Rabinowitz, had discovered Eris in 2003. As a result of the discovery of the satellite Dysnomia, Eris was the first TNO known to be more massive than Pluto.
Career
Trujillo attended Oak Park and River Forest High School in Oak Park, Illinois. He received his B.Sc. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1995, and was a member of the Xi chapter of Tau Epsilon Phi, and received his Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of Hawaii in 2000. Trujillo was later a postdoctoral scholar at Caltech, and is currently an astronomer at the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii. He studies the Kuiper belt and the outer Solar System.
The main-belt asteroid 12101 Trujillo is named for him.
List of discoveries
Trujillo is credited by the Minor Planet Center with the discovery and co-discovery of 50 numbered minor planets between 1996 and 2007, including many trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) from the Kuiper belt (see table). The last major TNO, Eris, was considered by him, his team, NASA, and many others to be the tenth planet, but the International Astronomical Union assigned it to the new dwarf planet and plutoid status.
The known plutoids are: