Watch the skies! Everybody. Keep watching the skies.
Posted on 09/14/2021 9:27:30 AM PDT by BenLurkin
Of the 461 objects described for the first time in the new paper, a few stand out. Nine are known as extreme trans-Neptunian objects, which have orbits that swing out at least 150 AUs from the sun. Four of those are extremely extreme, with orbital distances of 230 AUs. At these distances, the objects are hardly affected by Neptune's gravity, but their strange orbits suggest an influence from outside the solar system. Some researchers think that influence might be a yet-undiscovered planet, dubbed Planet Nine. (Others think that the combined gravity of lots of little objects, or, alternatively, nothing more than a statistical anomaly, explain the weird orbits.) The newly discovered objects could thus help researchers hone in on the possible Planet Nine — or disprove its existence.
The researchers also found four new Neptune Trojans. Trojans are bodies that share the orbits of a planet or moon. In this case, the objects share Neptune's orbit around the sun. They also observed the Bernardinelli-Bernstein comet, named after the two lead authors of the paper, University of Pennsylvania cosmologist Gary Bernstein and University of Washington postdoctoral scholar Pedro Bernardinelli. The two researchers were the first to spot the comet in the Dark Energy Survey dataset. The Bernardinelli-Bernstein comet may be up to 100 miles (160 km) wide. It hails from the Oort cloud, another layer of icy objects even more distant than the Kuiper Belt.
At least 155 of the newly discovered objects are what astronomers called "detached." This means that they are far enough from Neptune that the large planet's gravity doesn't affect them much; instead, they're mostly tied to the solar system by the distant pull of the sun. Detached objects, sometimes known as extended scattered disc objects, tend to have huge elliptical orbits.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
“Cosmic objects”, as opposed to non cosmic space objects?...
Are they slowing down?
If so, we’re in trouble...............
So definitely beyond Uranus.
Watch the skies! Everybody. Keep watching the skies.
Cool movie, even today.
Love how the journalist is the “wise observer” who wears a stylish scarf.
Planet 9
If you wanted to build a probe that would check in on the earth from time to time, this would be a good place to hide it.
The original shows what can be done with good writing, attention to detail and reasonable special effects. Too bad those things are in short supply theses days. Too many hacks today think that all you need is a big CGI budget and lens flares.
It’s John Durham’s report. It’ll be here within a thousand years.
2/3 of your nick is in a line here :)
# yet-undiscovered planet, dubbed Planet Nine.
Yeah, that would be planet 10 or planet X depending upon your familiarity with roman numerals.
Planet 9 is Pluto.
Pluto is a planet. Pluto is not a TNO.
Neptune’s average distance from the sun is 30 AU’s. Shouldn’t any object orbiting the sun with an average distance of more than 30 AU’s be considered a “trans-Neptunian object”? Or do they have to know the secret handshake to be part of the club?
Oh, C’mon man. Anything that far out is gonna be strange.
However, if it is coming this way and both slowing down and changing direction your choice of “strange” is way understated.
Agreed.
Plays have been put on for thousands of years and all historic reports say they were very entertaining with zero special effects, or minimal ones.
The movie highlights some interesting trends current at the time. Anxiety over the atomic bomb created for the first time a popular distrust of science. The head scientist, a man with a goatee and an indefinite foreign accent, is willing to sacrifice the lives of station’s crew for pure science, believing that such knowledge is the higher good. He also naively believes that a form of higher life must be inherently reasonable, if not benevolent. He sabotages the safety of the Arctic station to protect the alien, and eventually pays for that with his own life. This is meant as a commentary against both the dangers of unrestricted scientific research, and the wisdom of allowing intellectuals authority over how we protect ourselves against foreign threats.
Thanks BenLurkin. I think I'll tweak the ping message just a tad.
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...their strange orbits suggest an influence from outside the solar system. Some researchers think that influence might be a yet-undiscovered planet, dubbed Planet Nine.
| Google news searches: exoplanet · exosolar · extrasolar · |
"To Pluto And Far Beyond" By David H. Levy, Parade, January 15, 2006 -- We don't have a dictionary definition yet that includes all the contingencies. In the wake of the new discovery, however, the International Astronomical Union has set up a group to develop a workable definition of planet. For our part, in consultation with several experienced planetary astronomers, Parade offers this definition: A planet is a body large enough that, when it formed, it condensed under its own gravity to be shaped like a sphere. It orbits a star directly and is not a moon of another planet.
He knows a thing or two because he’s seen a thing or two.
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