Has Planet X been discovered?

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Has Planet X been discovered?

Post by voguy » 01-20-2016 07:51 PM

Astronomers Have Announced The Discovery Of Giant "Planet X"

Conspiracy theorists alike have long suspected that there might be ninth planet in our Solar System, far out beyond the orbit of Pluto.

'Planet X' community has occasionally suggested that this distant ninth world is currently on a devastating collision course with our own planet. But actual scientists are interested in the idea too, mainly because of the need to explain anomalies in the orbits of extremely far-off objects in the Kuiper Belt, the vast and mysterious disc of rock, ice and comets that extends beyond the orbit of Neptune.

Most recently Scott Sheppard from the Carnegie Institution for Science, and Chad Trujillo, from the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii, argued in a 2014 paper and subsequent research that several small objects, including 2012 VP113 and a 500-1,000 km across rock called V774104, exhibit a strange discrepancy in their orbits. Specifically, there is a strange gap between their closest approach to the Sun and the time when they pass through the 'plane' of the Solar System. This discrepancy could have several causes -- other researchers have argued it might be the result of 'stellar nurseries' near to our Solar System, or an object pulled out of orbit from its star and into the outer reaches of our own -- but a large, dark planet, estranged but still at home around our sun, was considered a more likely cause.

Now a team at the California Institute of Technology believe they have found clear evidence of that giant, icy world -- our Sun's ninth -- orbiting at an almost unimaginably vast distance.
PlanetX.jpg
PlanetX.jpg (93.04 KiB) Viewed 2635 times
The paper, published by Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown -- the latter of whom, in a neat twist, was one of the researchers primarily responsible for demoting Pluto to a dwarf planet in 2006 -- in the Astronomical Journal, describes this world as being five to 10 times as massive as Earth and around two to four times as wide. That scale is not closely matched by any existing world, but would make the planet the fifth largest in the Solar System, closest in mass to Uranus.

The existence of almost-planets in the belt is nothing new on its own -- Pluto was long regarded as a 'Planet X' itself, before it was discovered, finally, in 1930 (and until its demotion to a dwarf planet in 2006). Makemake and Haumea are two further dwarf planets that lie in the belt, while Eris is more massive even than Pluto and usually orbits the Sun from a much greater distance. But all of these objects are orders of magnitude smaller than Planet Nine.

The orbit of Planet Nine is extreme, never coming closer than 30.5 kilometres from the Sun, which is five times further than the average orbit of Pluto. The world would be extremely cold and dark -- which is why no one has ever taken a direct picture of it. Indeed, so controversial is the planet that Batygin and Brown initially launched their investigation to prove Planet Nine did not exist, and disprove the 2014 paper by Sheppard and Trujillo. But after building on research by other astronomers, Brown and Batygin found their computer model of the object's orbits only worked if Planet Nine existed; the "clustering" of the objects was only possible if a ninth planet was affecting their orbits, twisting them by up to 90 degrees and keeping them from coming as close as expected to the Sun.

"It's almost like having six hands on a clock all moving at different rates, and when you happen to look up, they're all in exactly the same place," Brown said in a statement. "Basically it shouldn't happen randomly."

"Shouldn’t something like that be hard to miss?" Brown told Scientific American. "Yes, you would think so. This a case where we had our noses buried in the data, never stepping back and looking at the Solar System from above. I couldn’t believe I'd never noticed this before. It's ridiculous."

Brown and Batygin said they had considered the possibility that instead of a planet, an object had formed more recently in the belt comprised of comets and rocky balls clumped together. On review that appears to be impossible, because the belt does not contain enough mass. A planet roughly five times as massive as Earth, however, formed along with the rest of the Solar System, perfectly fits the model, and explains other strange phenomena discovered in the belt in recent decades.

"Continued analysis of both distant and highly inclined outer Solar System objects provides the opportunity for testing our hypothesis as well as further constraining the orbital elements and mass of the distant planet," the paper says.
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." - Thomas Jefferson

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Re: Has Planet X been discovered?

Post by voguy » 01-20-2016 08:09 PM

"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." - Thomas Jefferson

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Re: Has Planet X been discovered?

Post by voguy » 01-20-2016 08:10 PM

If you just wish to watch....

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Re: Has Planet X been discovered?

Post by fos » 01-21-2016 10:03 AM

Distant objects are frequently found by gravitational anomalies and perturbed orbits of know objects. Pluto was originally thought to be much larger than it is. X (9) is purported to have an orbital period of thousands of years. It is currently thought to be on the other side of the Sun so I don't that anyone on Earth or foreseeable generations have anything to worry about. It is very interesting, though. It is still very speculative. I hope it pans out.

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Re: Has Planet X been discovered?

Post by Doka » 01-21-2016 12:09 PM

In this case I think perhaps that this is just the on going "keeping the people in fear" campaign along with the "global warming" thing, of which by the way was "racheted" up by NASA yesterday, incase you didn't notice. But, that's not to say that our solar system doesn't include a lot more planets than we are currently are counting, But have been there a long long time, but hey, we are going to be the LAST to know. :x
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Re: Has Planet X been discovered?

Post by kbot » 01-21-2016 12:13 PM

Wondering......... there were reports about an object, variously located behind the Sun, or in the Southern Hemisphere. Is this a new object, or the same, and only now becoming mainstream?
There you go man, keep as cool as you can. Face piles and piles of trials with smiles. It riles them to believe that you perceive the web they weave. And keep on thinking free. (Moody Blues)

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Re: Has Planet X been discovered?

Post by voguy » 01-21-2016 04:45 PM

I'll just say that as I read documents which most people have not seen, and talked face to face with some folks; while we would like to say we know a lot about our planetary neighborhood, we know very little. Or at the least, what we have happened upon is subjected to editing and misquote by many sides protecting an agenda or simply stroking their ego. I would say there is more to this, as well as other topics we have brushed upon, but it's better not to discuss less it be subverted.

@FOS: Your "gravitational anomalies" statement is profound in the fact I can't help but wonder in the astronomy crowd has not been tracking the data for this new planet thinking that it was Pluto. I find it interesting that some folks in science, whom are usually the most vocal, seem to be hanging back and not willing to weigh in even with conjecture.
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." - Thomas Jefferson

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