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The hunt for Planet Nine reveals some strange, far-out objects
Los Angeles Times ^ | 2 Sept, 2016 | Amina Khan

Posted on 09/04/2016 12:00:50 PM PDT by MtnClimber

Astronomers hunting for Planet Nine have found some 50 new objects lying beyond the orbit of Neptune – including a few that may help them track down this elusive, distant world.

The new discoveries, described in a paper accepted to the Astronomical Journal, mark another step toward finding this mysterious giant planet, which could help rewrite our understanding of our own solar system.

In 2014, astronomers Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science and Chadwick Trujillo of Northern Arizona University announced that they’d found an object with the most distant orbit ever observed in the solar system – a possible dwarf planet called 2012 VP113 that lay far beyond Pluto.

2012 VP113 (nicknamed “Biden”) was a baffling object, because its orbit placed it in what was thought to be a no man’s land between the Kuiper belt (the icy ring of distant debris whose largest member is Pluto) and the Oort cloud, a far-out, spherical shell of debris that scientists think surrounds the solar system..............

The scientists noticed something else strange: 2012 VP113 and Sedna both seemed to be making their closest approach to the sun at similar angles. This could mean that something big, far out in the darkness, was tugging on both their orbits in the same way.

(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...


TOPICS: Astronomy; Science
KEYWORDS: planet9; xplanets
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To: yarddog

While not a direct authority, Neil Degrasse Tyson spearheaded the effort to excommunicate Pluto.


21 posted on 09/04/2016 3:53:49 PM PDT by Celerity
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To: MtnClimber

“...strange, far out objects”
************************************
Hillary’s missing emails?


22 posted on 09/04/2016 7:10:03 PM PDT by House Atreides (Send BOTH Hillary & Bill to prison.)
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To: NYer
(over a year goes by, and...) Thanks NYer.
 
X-Planets
· join · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post new topic · subscribe ·
Google news searches: exoplanet · exosolar · extrasolar ·

23 posted on 12/12/2017 1:55:15 PM PST by SunkenCiv (www.tapatalk.com/groups/godsgravesglyphs/, forum.darwincentral.org, www.gopbriefingroom.com)
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