[libertylover]

Seems incredible that with all the looking they've done that they're just now seeing this. Admission: perhaps I just don't understand the scope of the problem, pun intended. And didn't astronomic officialdom decide a few years back that Pluto should still be considered a planet?

[MarkL]

Seems incredible that with all the looking they've done that they're just now seeing this. Admission: perhaps I just don't understand the scope of the problem, pun intended

There's a simple reason that scientists haven't found the extra planet until now, as long as you understand one thing. What you need to understand is, "Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space."

Mark

[tortoise]

Seems incredible that with all the looking they've done that they're just now seeing this.

This planet is 44 degrees off the ecliptic, an inclination far beyond where astronomers even bother to look for objects in our solar system. As is becoming more readily apparent, planetary objects in the Kuiper belt do not feel any particular need to be in or near the ecliptic. Now that they've started doing surveys at "improbable" inclinations, they are finding a lot of large trans-neptunian and Kuiper belt objects.