The Hunt for Planet X:
New Worlds and the Fate of Pluto
by Govert Schilling
reviewed by Marcus Chown
Posted on 02/18/2009 4:45:00 PM PST by SunkenCiv
Planet X would be the most significant addition to the solar system since the discovery of Pluto... Any new object would have to be well clear of the Kuiper belt to qualify as a planet. Yet intriguingly, it is studies of the belt that have suggested the planet's existence. Some KBOs travel in extremely elongated orbits around the sun. Others have steep orbits almost at right angles to the orbits of all the major planets. "Those could be signs of perturbation from a massive distant object," says Robert Jedicke, a solar system scientist at the University of Hawaii... Over the past 20 years, huge swaths of the sky have been searched for slowly moving bodies, and well over 1000 KBOs found. But these wide-area surveys can spot only large, bright objects; longer-exposure surveys that can find smaller, dimmer objects cover only small areas of the sky. A Mars-sized object at a distance of, say, 100 AU would be so faint that it could easily have escaped detection. That could soon change. In December 2008, the first prototype of the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) was brought into service at the Haleakala observatory on Maui, Hawaii.
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
The Hunt for Planet X:
New Worlds and the Fate of Pluto
by Govert Schilling
reviewed by Marcus Chown
Earth-sized planet predicted beyond Pluto
Cosmos Magazine | Friday, February 29, 2008 | Agence France-Presse
Posted on 03/20/2008 11:43:43 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1989253/posts
Yes there is, it is right between Planet Y and Planet Z!
Sorry, but I couldn’t resist.
Nibiru!
When I said [still writing in 2002] that Planet X -- if there is one -- would be discovered by 2015, I didn't know about this, but hey, I'll take it. ;') The article sez that the total mass for the Kuiper Belt Objects identified thus far would, if combined, be about 20 per cent the mass of the Earth.The Hunt for Planet XJust over a year after the New Horizons' launch, it will... pick up enough velocity to reach Pluto, possibly as early as July 2015... In their new research, Melita and Brunini have explored three possible reasons for the Kuiper Cliff... The third possibility is that the region beyond was brushed clear by the gravity of Planet X... the KBO orbits they have investigated so far fit in best with the influence of a Planet X.
by Heather Couper
and Nigel Henbest
Wait a minute... wouldn’t it be between Planet W and Planet Y?
Nyah nyah. ;’)
;’)
I’m sorry, that was my evil liberal twin who made that post! LOL. keyboarding dyslexia or something.
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Didn’t Alf call that object “Planet Dave?”
Interesting article. Isn’t there still some question as to whether Pluto should even be considered a planet?
The Man from Planet X!!
How is the search for our Sun’s twin, “Nemesis” going?
:’) Planetex sounds like a foot cream.
You know, you’re right.
Today is Pluto’s birthday BTW.
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"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. |
Massive planet may lie beyond PlutoWriting in the issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society published on 11th October, Dr John Murray sets out a case for an object orbiting the Sun 32,000 times farther away than Earth. It would, however, be extremely faint and slow moving, and so would have escaped detection by present and previous searches for distant planets... The object would have to be at least as massive as Jupiter to create a gravitational disturbance large enough to give rise to the observed effect, but currently favoured theories of how the solar system formed cannot easily explain the presence of a large planet so far from the Sun. If it were ten times more massive than Jupiter, it would be more akin to a brown dwarf (the coolest kind of stellar object) than a planet, brighter, and more likely to have been detected already. So Dr Murray speculates that such an object, if it exists, will be planetary in nature and will have been captured into its present orbit since the solar system formed, even though the probability of such an event seems low on the basis of current knowledge.
Royal Astronomical Society News Release
October 7, 1999
“But lurking in the solar system’s dark recesses, rumour has it, is an unsighted world - Planet X, a frozen body perhaps as large as Mars, or even Earth.”
Rumor has it? Yes, “rumor” from ancient lores including an extensive description of PlanetX and its inhabitants and its past effects on the solar system and earth, courtesy of the Sumerians, the earliest known on earth. If “rumor” holds true, not only is there a planet X, we can expect a visit to the inner solar system in the not too distant future. Say about 2012. This would not be good news. Forget about buying gold.
http://www.december212012.com/articles/PlanetX_Nibiru/NASA_AND_PLANET_X.htm
http://www.detailshere.com/niburu.htm
Planet XWhat this means is that a planet of Earth's mass could exist undetected if it were more than a few 100 AU away, and even a Jupiter (300 Earth mass planet) could exist at distances only slightly greater. The sun could have a companion brown dwarf or even a star if far enough away! It's a nice thought but it will be very tough to do anything about it unless we are lucky. The Pan STARRS telescope now under development in Hawaii will provide the best constraints in the forseeable future... There is no convincing evidence for Planet X but "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence". Such an object could exist provided it is sufficiently far away.
by David Jewitt
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