New Planet Found in Our Solar System?

LazyLion

LazyLion

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http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...lanet-solar-system-kuiper-belt-space-science/

An as yet undiscovered planet might be orbiting at the dark fringes of the solar system, according to new research.

Too far out to be easily spotted by telescopes, the potential unseen planet appears to be making its presence felt by disturbing the orbits of so-called Kuiper belt objects, said Rodney Gomes, an astronomer at the National Observatory of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro.

Kuiper belt objects are small icy bodies—including some dwarf planets—that lie beyond the orbit of Neptune.

Once considered the ninth planet in our system, the dwarf planet Pluto, for example, is one of the largest Kuiper belt objects, at about 1,400 miles (2,300 kilometers) wide. Dozens of the other objects are hundreds of miles across, and more are being discovered every year.

(See "Three New 'Plutos'? Possible Dwarf Planets Found.")

What's intriguing, Gomes said, is that, according to his new calculations, about a half dozen Kuiper belt objects—including the remote body known as Sedna—are in strange orbits compared to where they should be, based on existing solar system models. (Related: "Pluto Neighbor Gets Downsized.")

The objects' unexpected orbits have a few possible explanations, said Gomes, who presented his findings Tuesday at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Timberline Lodge, Oregon.

"But I think the easiest one is a planetary-mass solar companion"—a planet that orbits very far out from the sun but that's massive enough to be having gravitational effects on Kuiper belt objects.

Mystery Planet a Captured Rogue?

For the new work, Gomes analyzed the orbits of 92 Kuiper belt objects, then compared his results to computer models of how the bodies should be distributed, with and without an additional planet.

If there's no distant world, Gomes concludes, the models don't produce the highly elongated orbits we see for six of the objects.

How big exactly the planetary body might be isn't clear, but there are a lot of possibilities, Gomes added.

Based on his calculations, Gomes thinks a Neptune-size world, about four times bigger than Earth, orbiting 140 billion miles (225 billion kilometers) away from the sun—about 1,500 times farther than Earth—would do the trick.

But so would a Mars-size object—roughly half Earth's size—in a highly elongated orbit that would occasionally bring the body sweeping to within 5 billion miles (8 billion kilometers) of the sun.

Gomes speculates that the mystery object could be a rogue planet that was kicked out of its own star system and later captured by the sun's gravity. (See "'Nomad' Planets More Common Than Thought, May Orbit Black Holes.")

Or the putative planet could have formed closer to our sun, only to be cast outward by gravitational encounters with other planets.

However, actually finding such a world would be a challenge.

To begin with, the planet might be pretty dim. Also, Gomes's simulations don't give astronomers any clue as to where to point their telescopes—"it can be anywhere," he said.

No Smoking Gun

Other astronomers are intrigued but say they'll want a lot more proof before they're willing to agree that the solar system—again—has nine planets. (Also see "Record Nine-Planet Star System Discovered?")

"Obviously, finding another planet in the solar system is a big deal," said Rory Barnes, an astronomer at the University of Washington. But, he added, "I don't think he really has any evidence that suggests it is out there."

Instead, he added, Gomes "has laid out a way to determine how such a planet could sculpt parts of our solar system. So while, yes, the evidence doesn't exist yet, I thought the bigger point was that he showed us that there are ways to find that evidence."

Douglas Hamilton, an astronomer from the University of Maryland, agrees that the new findings are far from definitive.

"What he showed in his probability arguments is that it's slightly more likely. He doesn't have a smoking gun yet."

And Hal Levison, an astronomer at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, says he isn't sure what to make of Gomes's finding.

"It seems surprising to me that a [solar] companion as small as Neptune could have the effect he sees," Levison said.

But "I know Rodney, and I'm sure he did the calculations right."
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http://www.newusanews.com/News-2313/Astronomers-find-proof-of-unseen-planet-beyond-Pluto
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/252563/evidence-unseen-planet-solar-systems.html
 
Creag

Creag

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And I imagine that the SKA will do wonders for our knowledge of the universe :)
 
G

Geriatrix

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Elimentals said:
Sorry, no call dips in astronomy.
1st one to find it can name it, so off you go.

Oh, and enjoy the hunt.
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You can name it what you want, I claim it as mine. Go ahead, try and take it. See what happens. :twisted:
 
koeksGHT

koeksGHT

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We don't even know everything about our solar system and they are trying to find things in Galaxies far far away.. logic?
 
K

killadoob

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stricken said:
or Nibiru.
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Yup they have confirmed it's existence a while back but nobody believes it. It is suppose to come close enough this year to cause very bad things.

They think that is what the mayans are talking about but i dunno lol sounds a bit much. Then again if nasa did the info they would not release it. Imagine they release a statement something along the lines of new planet to destroy life on earth in dec. Anarchy.
 
G

GreyBush

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killadoob said:
Yup they have confirmed it's existence a while back but nobody believes it. It is suppose to come close enough this year to cause very bad things.

They think that is what the mayans are talking about but i dunno lol sounds a bit much. Then again if nasa did the info they would not release it. Imagine they release a statement something along the lines of new planet to destroy life on earth in dec. Anarchy.
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Obviously I wikipedia'd this...
The idea of the Nibiru encounter originated with Nancy Lieder, a Wisconsin woman who claims that as a girl she was contacted by gray extraterrestrials called Zetas, who implanted a communications device in her brain. In 1995, she founded the website ZetaTalk to disseminate her ideas.[2] Lieder first came to public attention on Internet newsgroups during the build-up to Comet Hale-Bopp's 1997 perihelion. She stated, speaking as the Zetas, that "The Hale-Bopp comet does not exist. It is a fraud, perpetrated by those who would have the teeming masses quiescent until it is too late. Hale-Bopp is nothing more than a distant star, and will draw no closer."[3] She claimed that the Hale-Bopp story was manufactured to distract people from the imminent arrival of a large planetary object, "Planet X", which would soon pass by Earth and destroy civilization.[3] After Hale-Bopp's perihelion revealed it as one of the brightest and longest-observed comets of the last century,[4] Lieder removed the first two sentences of her initial statement from her site, though they can still be found in Google's archives.[3] Her claims eventually made the New York Times.[5]
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Source
Sounds legit :p
 
K

killadoob

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Naaaa dude i like a conspiracy theory but this niburu shyte doesn't seem legit.

If it was suppose to destroy earth it should be visible by now. It does make for interesting reading though :D.
 
W

wrathex

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So it goes in history.
Let's not forget Percival Lowell 1855 - 1916

wiki:

Following the discovery of the planet Neptune in 1846, there was considerable speculation that another planet might exist beyond its orbit.

The search began in the mid-19th century and culminated at the start of the 20th with Percival Lowell's quest for Planet X.

Lowell proposed the Planet X hypothesis to explain apparent discrepancies in the orbits of the gas giants, particularly Uranus and Neptune, speculating that the gravity of a large unseen ninth planet could have perturbed Uranus enough to account for the irregularities.

Although Lowell's theories of the Martian canals, of surface features on Venus, and of Planet X are now discredited, his practice of building observatories at the position where they would best function has been adopted as a principle. :whistling:
 
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