Posted on 10/22/2005 1:05:39 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
In a report published in the January 2005 issue of The Astronomical Journal, planetary scientist Dr. Alan Stern of the Space Science and Engineering Division at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) shows Sedna could have formed far beyond the distance of Pluto... Stern's Sedna formation simulations assumed that Sedna's original orbit, while distant from the Sun, was circular. Astronomers agree that Sedna could not have formed in its present, eccentric orbit because such an orbit allows only violent collisions that prevent the growth of small bodies. Stern's simulations further assumed that the solar nebula -- the disk of material out of which the planets formed -- was much more extended than most previous simulations had assumed.
(Excerpt) Read more at physorg.com ...
Distant planetoid Sedna gives up more secrets
New Scientist | 4/15/05 | Maggie McKee
Posted on 04/16/2005 2:23:49 AM EDT by LibWhacker
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1384847/posts
"Astronomers have struggled to explain such an extreme orbit, but many believe a star passing by the Sun about 4 billion years ago yanked the planetoid off its original, circular course."
Distant Sedna Raises Possibility of Another Earth-Sized Planet in Our Solar System
Space.com | 3/16/04 | Robert Roy Britt
Posted on 03/18/2004 5:00:00 PM EST by LibWhacker
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1100694/posts
"Scientists can't figure out how Sedna, which is about three-fourths as big as Pluto, came to have such a strange orbit around the Sun. Sedna's path is highly elliptic. It ranges from 76 astronomical units (AU) when it is closest to the Sun to 1,000 AU when it is farthest. One AU is the distance from Earth to the Sun... Marsden favors an object closer in, a 'planetary object,' he told SPACE.com, perhaps at between 400 and 1,000 AU... Marsden says such a scenario leaves open the question of how an Earth-sized planet could have formed so far from the Sun, where raw material should have been sparse, according to current theory. Brown said an Earth-sized planet is indeed a possibility. But his team's calculations put it at about 70 AU."
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