Researchers Find Evidence Of Distant Outer Planet |
Researchers Find Evidence Of Distant Outer Planet |
Jun 2 2016, 04:13 AM
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#76
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Member Group: Members Posts: 495 Joined: 12-February 12 Member No.: 6336 |
Happy to be shot down in flames for my opinion though..... At least I won't. And also I am a bit hesitant on using the word 'evidence' as this thread got in the title. However, I still find this piece interesting that on condition it actually exists (that's why my parenthesis). @JohnVV: Plan 9 from other space? @HSchirmer: Yes that's how I understood it also. Though not being anywhere near an expert in celestial mechanic either, I found this possibility interesting enough to add a note about this. =) And yes, Scott Sheppard and Chadwick Trujillo published a paper on a massive object shepherding inner Oort cloud objects in March 2014. The press release from Carnegie then stated: "...their work indicates the potential presence of an enormous planet, perhaps up to 10 times the size of Earth, not yet seen, but possibly influencing the orbit of 2012 VP113, as well as other inner Oort cloud objects." |
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Jun 3 2016, 07:37 AM
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#77
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Merciless Robot Group: Admin Posts: 8785 Joined: 8-December 05 From: Los Angeles Member No.: 602 |
All right, you guys....
Jasedm is exactly right, though. It's one thing to postulate a discovery like this based on analysis of the orbital parameters of other objects--it's been done before, of course--but this alleged planet now seems to have more authoritatively stated attributes than Neptune did before the discovery of Triton! (I'm sure there will be some article about postulated moons of this thing in short order...) -------------------- A few will take this knowledge and use this power of a dream realized as a force for change, an impetus for further discovery to make less ancient dreams real.
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Jun 3 2016, 06:21 PM
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#78
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1669 Joined: 5-March 05 From: Boulder, CO Member No.: 184 |
The exoplanet hypothesis is also discussed in the May 2016 issue of Scientific American. It seems like a reasonable idea keeping the appropriate caveats in mind. One note is that early in our solar system's history "we" could have been living in a star cluster and it would have been easier to borrow a planet.
-------------------- Steve [ my home page and planetary maps page ]
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Jun 3 2016, 07:30 PM
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#79
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Member Group: Members Posts: 655 Joined: 22-January 06 Member No.: 655 |
Sorry, I didn't mean to set the cat amongst the pigeons.
Personally I'd be delighted if Planet IX is definitively confirmed in the near future - it would be another huge endorsement of the scientific method. I'm reminded of the situation surrounding a postulated intra-Mercurial planet (Vulcan) in the latter part of the nineteenth century. It was proposed that a small planet might account for Mercury's orbital peculiarities, and several transits of the sun by a putative planet were observed by respected astronomers. As it turned out though, Einstein's theory accounted for the discrepancies, and it's unlikely that anything more than a few kilometres in diameter orbits closer to the sun than Mercury. On the other hand, Neptune was 'discovered' mathematically so I'm not betting either way...... |
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Jun 14 2016, 02:56 PM
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#80
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2346 Joined: 7-December 12 Member No.: 6780 |
The most recent paper of Mike Brown et al. about the search for a Planet Nine constrains its orbital parameter space, and the paper is honest about the possibility, that the existence of Planet Nine might eventually be ruled out, if new observations find KBOs inconsistent with the simulations. However, the simulations are still sparse, and might have overlooked some solutions.
QUOTE As with the distant Kuiper belt objects, of course, detection of these objects also has the strong possibility of entirely ruling out the existence of Planet Nine if they are not found with perihelia in the locations predicted by the hypothesis. One thing I'd wished for would have been explicite predictions about future observations of KBOs, in order to overcome the statistically somewhat questionable method of a-posteriori assessments of probabilities. This would open an option to provide statistically more rigorous indirect evidence for the existence of a Planet Nine. The crux with very eccentric planets is, that they are near their aphelion most of the time, where they are faintest. |
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Jun 14 2016, 06:31 PM
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#81
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Member Group: Members Posts: 684 Joined: 24-July 15 Member No.: 7619 |
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Jul 12 2016, 07:52 PM
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#82
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Newbie Group: Members Posts: 14 Joined: 7-January 13 Member No.: 6832 |
Will this new dwarf planet's [MOD: 2015 RR245] orbital elements help improve the predicted location of Planet X? Does it decrease the number of square degrees of sky as seen from earth that need to be searched? Does anyone have a star map of the current search area of sky that Planet X could be in?
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Jul 12 2016, 08:37 PM
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#83
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2106 Joined: 13-February 10 From: Ontario Member No.: 5221 |
Best place for Planet 9 info is the blog the paper co-authors wrote with a skymap.
http://www.findplanetnine.com/ So far nothing new about this latest object's implications for the search. |
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Jul 12 2016, 08:57 PM
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#84
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2346 Joined: 7-December 12 Member No.: 6780 |
When looking at the graphics, my first impression is, that 2015 RR245 could have been scattered by Neptune, hence not directly related to the presumed Planet 9.
But it might inspire the possibility, that there might have existed a planet on a similar orbit as 2015 RR245, responsible for the clustering of objects attributed to a Planet 9. It would be interesting to hear Mike Brown, whether he is assessing the new find as an increase or a decrease of the probability of the existence of a Planet 9. But I think that's hard to answer without prior simulations. |
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Jul 13 2016, 05:19 PM
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#85
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1887 Joined: 20-November 04 From: Iowa Member No.: 110 |
The objects influenced by Planet 9 are those with semimajor axes > 150 AU, particularly the detached objects with perihelion >42 AU. 2015 RR245's semimajor axis is 81 AU and its perihelion is 33 AU.
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Jul 14 2016, 11:28 AM
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#86
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 24 Joined: 11-February 07 From: College Station, TX Member No.: 1709 |
There's an article about this in today's New York Times with some interesting additional information from Drs. Bannister & Brown: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/14/science/...arf-planet.html
QUOTE Dr. Bannister’s dwarf planet is not distant enough to be affected by Planet Nine, but at least one of the 600 objects tracked by the survey is. She declined to give details, but has described it in talks, including one attended by Dr. Brown.
“I know that it’s going to fit in at least with most of the story,” Dr. Brown said. “It’s exactly in the direction it should be for Planet Nine.” |
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Jul 14 2016, 06:47 PM
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#87
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1887 Joined: 20-November 04 From: Iowa Member No.: 110 |
but at least one of the 600 objects tracked by the survey is SETI talk by Michelle Bannister where that one is discussed |
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Jul 15 2016, 12:53 AM
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#88
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Member Group: Members Posts: 723 Joined: 13-June 04 Member No.: 82 |
Solar Obliquity Induced by Planet Nine
QUOTE The six-degree obliquity of the sun suggests that either an asymmetry was present in the solar system's formation environment, or an external torque has misaligned the angular momentum vectors of the sun and the planets. However, the exact origin of this obliquity remains an open question. Batygin & Brown (2016) have recently shown that the physical alignment of distant Kuiper Belt orbits can be explained by a 5-20 Earth-mass planet on a distant, eccentric, and inclined orbit, with an approximate perihelion distance of ~250 AU. Using an analytic model for secular interactions between Planet Nine and the remaining giant planets, here we show that a planet with similar parameters can naturally generate the observed obliquity as well as the specific pole position of the sun's spin axis, from a nearly aligned initial state. Thus, Planet Nine offers a testable explanation for the otherwise mysterious spin-orbit misalignment of the solar system.
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Sep 1 2016, 01:18 AM
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#89
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Member Group: Members Posts: 723 Joined: 13-June 04 Member No.: 82 |
New Extreme Trans-Neptunian Objects: Towards a Super-Earth in the Outer Solar System
QUOTE We are conducting a wide and deep survey for extreme distant solar system objects. Our goal is to understand the high perihelion objects Sedna and 2012 VP113 and determine if an unknown massive planet exists in the outer solar system. The discovery of new extreme objects from our survey of some 1080 square degrees of sky to over 24th magnitude in the r-band are reported. Two of the new objects, 2014 SR349 and 2013 FT28, are extreme detached trans-Neptunian objects, which have semi-major axes greater than 150 AU and perihelia well beyond Neptune (q>40 AU). Both new objects have orbits with arguments of perihelia within the range of the clustering of this angle seen in the other known extreme objects. One of these objects, 2014 SR349, has a longitude of perihelion similar to the other extreme objects, but 2013 FT28, which may have more significant Neptune interactions, is about 180 degrees away or anti-aligned in its longitude of perihelion. We also discovered the first outer Oort cloud object with a perihelion beyond Neptune, 2014 FE72. We discuss these and other interesting objects discovered in our ongoing survey. All the high semi-major axis (a>150 AU) and high perihelion (q>35 AU) bodies follow the previously identified argument of perihelion clustering between 290 and 40 degrees as first reported and explained as being from an unknown massive planet by Trujillo and Sheppard (2014), which some have called Planet X or Planet 9. We also report objects with lower perihelia (q<35 AU) and a>200 AU show arguments of perihelia clustering at the opposite angles between 100 and 200 degrees. Finally, we find that the longitude of perihelion is significantly correlated with the argument of perihelion for all extreme objects.
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Sep 1 2016, 05:01 AM
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#90
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Merciless Robot Group: Admin Posts: 8785 Joined: 8-December 05 From: Los Angeles Member No.: 602 |
MOD NOTE: Just a reminder that in accordance with rule 1.9 please do not refer to this postulated object during discussion as "Planet 9" due to the ongoing (and indefinite, and definitely prohibited here) debate about what and what is not a planet.
Fully understand that external articles and authors do so constantly, but the Forum is not going to participate in or enable (even indirectly) this highly emotional, too often acrimonious, and frankly unscientific debate. Thanks! -------------------- A few will take this knowledge and use this power of a dream realized as a force for change, an impetus for further discovery to make less ancient dreams real.
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