Two more planets in our Solar System, say astronomers

www.businessinsider.com ^ | Jan. 19, 2015, 8:40 AM | Richard INGHAM, AFP

[Red Badger]

Paris (AFP) - The Solar System has at least two more planets waiting to be discovered beyond the orbit of Pluto, Spanish and British astronomers say.

The official list of planets in our star system runs to eight, with gas giant Neptune the outermost.

Beyond Neptune, Pluto was relegated to the status of "dwarf planet" by the International Astronomical Union in 2006, although it is still championed by some as the most distant planet from the Sun.

In a study published in the latest issue of the British journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, researchers propose that "at least two" planets lie beyond Pluto.

Their calculations are based on the unusual orbital behaviour of very distant space rocks called extreme trans-Neptunian objects, or ETNOs.

In theory, ETNOs should be dispersed in a band some 150 Astronomical Units (AU) from the Sun.

An AU, a measurement of Solar System distance, is the span between Earth and the Sun -- nearly 150 million kilometres (almost 93 million miles).

ETNOs should also be more or less on the same orbital plane as the Solar System planets.

But observations of about a dozen ETNOs have suggested a quite different picture, the study says.

If correct, they imply that ETNOs are scattered much more widely, at between 150 and 525 AU, and with an orbital inclination of about 20 degrees.

To explain this anomaly, the study suggests some very large objects -- planets -- must be in the neighbourhood and their gravitational force is bossing the much smaller ETNOs around.

"This excess of objects with unexpected orbital parameters makes us believe that some invisible forces are altering the distribution" of the ETNOs, said Carlos de la Fuente Marcos of the Complutense University of Madrid.

[Verginius Rufus]

Le Verrier may have been wrong about Vulcan, but he is credited with the discovery of Neptune. He calculated the location of a planet beyond Uranus, sent the information to an astronomer, Johann Galle, at an observatory in Berlin, and Galle found Neptune within an hour within one degree of where Le Verrier predicted it would be. That was in 1846 and Neptune takes 164.8 years to go around the sun once, so it is now very close to where it was when it was discovered.

[camle]

ceres and Esis?

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks nothingnew.

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[free_life]

Our solar system extends much further out than has been uderstood. There should be many more planets than we can detect now and possibly hundreds in our solar system.

[Dr. Sivana]

And they are for sale!! Please contact me at your earliest convenience for a great deal.

Well, you might own it, but I got to name it through "International Planet Registry". It's stored in book form in the U.S. Copyright Office.

[Capt. Tom]

Le Verrier may have been wrong about Vulcan, but he is credited with the discovery of Neptune.

Based on the Vulcan episode. I would expect modern scientists to be more careful in predicting new planets - so this could prove to be true.-Tom

[Verginius Rufus]

Ceres is an asteroid. Apparently a space probe launched by NASA in 2007 is expected to reach Ceres next month.

The largest of the trans-Neptune dwarf planets is Eris, which is supposed to have a diameter of 1,850 miles. Its period is 560 years (vs. 248 years for Pluto), but at times it is closer to the sun than Pluto is. Its name means "strife." It has one known satellite, Dysnomia, which means "lawlessness" in Greek.

The other dwarf planets further out than Pluto are Haumea and Makemake.

[Verginius Rufus]

Ceres is an asteroid. Apparently a space probe launched by NASA in 2007 is expected to reach Ceres next month.

The largest of the trans-Neptune dwarf planets is Eris, which is supposed to have a diameter of 1,850 miles. Its period is 560 years (vs. 248 years for Pluto), but at times it is closer to the sun than Pluto is. Its name means "strife." It has one known satellite, Dysnomia, which means "lawlessness" in Greek.

The other dwarf planets further out than Pluto are Haumea and Makemake.

[camle]

thanx, Verg!

[Verginius Rufus]

According to one of the other threads here yesterday, the probe going to Ceres won't get there until March. It is already sending back photos showing Ceres rotating--there is a bright white spot on the surface so it easy to tell how fast it is rotating.

Ceres was discovered on Jan. 1, 1801 (the first night of the 19th century), by Giuseppe Piazzi, a native of Sicily. The goddess Ceres was the patron goddess of ancient Sicily.

[Kenny Bunk]

They should be able to plot an orbit for these objects.

Not unless they have a Captain Video Decoder Ring!

Decoder Ring

[Red Badger]

One ring to plot them all and in the darkness find them!........................