Waiting in the wings: An artist's illustration showing a planet two-thirds the size of the Earth, which is believed by Japanese researchers to be in the outer reaches of the Solar System. Image: KOBE UNIVERSITY
Posted on 03/20/2008 11:43:43 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Japanese scientists believe another planet, up to two-thirds the size of Earth, is orbiting in the far reaches of the Solar System... "Because of the very cold temperature, its surface would be covered with ice, icy ammonia and methane," said lead researcher Tadashi Mukai. The study by Mukai and co-worker Patryk Lykawka will be published in the April issue of the Astronomical Journal. "The possibility is high that a yet unknown, planet-class celestial body, measuring 30 per cent to 70 per cent of the Earth's mass, exists in the outer edges of the Solar System," says a statement released by the University. "If research is conducted on a wide scale, the planet is likely to be discovered in less than 10 years," it claims. This Planet X -- so called by scientists as it is yet unfound -- would have an oblong elliptical solar orbit and circle the sun every thousand years, the team said, estimating its radius was 15 to 26 billion km... "In coming up with an explanation for the celestial bodies, we thought it would be most natural to assume the existence of a yet unknown planet," Mukai said. "Based on our hypothesis, we calculated how debris moved over the past four billion years. The result matched the actual movement of the celestial bodies we can observe now."
(Excerpt) Read more at cosmosmagazine.com ...
Waiting in the wings: An artist's illustration showing a planet two-thirds the size of the Earth, which is believed by Japanese researchers to be in the outer reaches of the Solar System. Image: KOBE UNIVERSITY
Planet X uncovered (again?) by Mike Brown, Saturday, March 15, 2008
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The Search for Distant Objects in the Solar System Using Spacewatch
Astronomical Journal | volume 133 (2007) | Jeffrey A. Larsen et al
Posted on 03/12/2007 2:38:09 PM EDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1799615/posts
“Survey used a multiple-night detection scheme to extend our rate sensitivity to as low as 0.012 arcsec hr-1. When combined with our plate scale and flux sensitivity (V21), this survey was sensitive to Mars-sized objects out to 300 AU and Jupiter-sized planets out to 1200 AU... We found no large objects at low inclinations despite having sufficient sensitivity in both flux and rate to see them out as far as 1200 AU. For low inclinations, we can rule out more than one to two Pluto-sized objects out to 100 AU and one to two Mars-sized objects to 200 AU.”
Comet’s course hints at mystery planet [ from 2001 ]
Govert Schilling | last updated February 5th, 2002 | Govert Schilling
Posted on 08/18/2006 5:36:59 PM EDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1686125/posts
Makes me wonder about Uranus!
Hey!
Leave SunkenCiv alone!
That kind of perv talk just ain't kool on this website!!!
/giggle
Hmmm. I don't see how lack of heat produces water, methane and ammonia.
Thanks for asking.
Mine is not doing good today but last week I had a bad case of asstroids.
I was joking a bit about the cold, but I did wonder where the chemicals came from, whether it was a gas or solid planet.
At those temps, what we recognize as gases become solids.
And there's evidence there was a big one in our neighborhood in the early days of our solar system.
Violent Past: Young sun withstood a supernova blast
A big bully pummeled our sun in its infancy, fatefully altering the composition and evolution of the solar system, a new study suggests. The heavy, in this case, was a nearby, massive star. First, the massive star pounded the young sun with fierce winds. Then, the tyrant exploded, blasting the sun with shock waves that suffused it and its embryonic planets with iron...... and other elements as well.
For sure.
BTW, by solid planet, I meant like earth--iron as opposed to frozen gases.
Neat.
But more exciting than these more "local" discoveries will be the possibility we may find rocky crust planets orbiting stars up to 250 light years away with an atmosphere of oxygen, nitrogen and water vapor--the first Earth-like planets outside our Solar System.
Maybe we can buy global warming credits from this place.
aruanan’s right, the low temperatures make liquid methane possible, and keep (for example) the ammonia from doin’ stuff like leaving. That’s unlike the situation here, where temperatures are too high for that. Also, methane would easily combine with oxygen here to form CO2, H2O, whatever else. :’)
“Why do we call hemmorhoids hemmorhoids and asteroids asteroids? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?” — Bob Schimmel
Rudder, re the composition of this hypothetical Mars-sized planet, something that size would be rocky, probably. But until there is an actual discovery, there’s no way to know. :’)
http://www.nineplanets.org/hypo.html#planetx
http://www.nineplanets.org/origin.html
The possibility of a brown dwarf companion has been raised and then “ruled out” a number of times, particularly since the Nemesis hypothesis emerged to try to make random asteroid strikes on Earth into something nice and uniform and predictable. So I give up. My own guess has been that there’s a largish planet but that its orbit is out of the ecliptic, and/or retrograde.
That’s the first thing that’s made sense in this topic. ;’)
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