Comet's course hints at mystery planet [ from 2001 ]

Govert Schilling ^ | last updated February 5th, 2002 | Govert Schilling

[SunkenCiv]

The giant comet, known as 2000 CR105, measures some 400 kilometers across... Brett Gladman of the Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur in Nice, France, and his colleagues have discovered... that 2000 CR105 orbits the sun in 3175 years and never comes closer than 6.6 billion kilometers--well beyond Neptune's orbit. The farthest point of the highly eccentric orbit lies 58.2 billion kilometers from the sun--13 times as far as Neptune... One possibility is that 2000 CR105's orbit evolved into its freakish shape gradually, due to small, periodic gravitational nudges from Neptune. Computer simulations imply that such a "diffusive chaos" scenario is unlikely, Levison says, but Gladman says it can't be ruled out... The most exciting possibility is that a planet-sized body still hides in the outer solar system. "A Mars-sized body [at an average distance of some 15 billion kilometers] could scatter a body like 2000 CR105 to its present orbit," Gladman and his colleagues write in their Icarus paper. Unlike Mars, the planet would consist mainly of ice. Because its high mass would protect it from orbital disruptions, the astronomers say, it could still be around... But Levison doesn't like the idea of an undiscovered Mars out there. "It's not clear how it would have formed," he says. "I would be surprised if anything much larger than Pluto would be found. But of course I could be wrong."

[garbageseeker]

It's the compressed heart of an old star that was once bright like our Sun but has since faded and shrunk.

It would be impossible to mine though.You would have to contend with the massive gravitational forces to begin with.

[garbageseeker]

A surface temperature of a white dwarf is 3900 K

[garbageseeker]

Which converts to 6500 degrees Fahrenheit. I will have to wait a 10 million years when it converts to a black dwarf.

[NicknamedBob]

I don't see the problem. The only reason to have a rock like that is to give it away.

You only want it to impress the girls, don't you?

[garbageseeker]

I think that they will like a diamond about the size of planet Earth.

[SunkenCiv]

Going by the "two months salary" rule, we're talking about someone a lot richer than anyone ever born, or a planet with realllly long months.

[NicknamedBob]

How long was a month on Pluto, when it was a planet?

[SunkenCiv]

Pluto's still a planet, the IAU can go [omitted].

I'm not sure that there's a sure answer to that question, due to the difficulty of observing the planet.

[NicknamedBob]

The information I had was that both bodies were tidally locked to each other. Each kept the other in its sky perpetually.

Depending on how you define a month, that could be a long one.

[TenthLegion]

Now we know where the DUmmies came from *¿*

[SunkenCiv]

just some additional info:

2000 CR105 and Planet X
Science Frontiers #136, Jul-Aug 2001
William R. Corliss
http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf136/sf136p04.htm

“History seems to be repeating itself with 2000 CR105. Astronomer B. Gladman proposes that 2000 CR105 was forced into its present eccentric orbit by an encounter with a Mars-size Planet X that now orbits the sun at a distance about 15 times that of Neptune. From the standpoint of celestial mechanics, this perturbation of 2000 CR105’s orbit is certainly within the realm of possibility.”

Evidence for an Extended Scattered Disk?
by B. Gladman, M. Holman, T. Grav, J. Kavelaars,
P. Nicholson, K. Aksnes, and J-M. Petit
http://www.oca.eu/gladman/cr105.html
http://www.obs-nice.fr/gladman/Extended.ps

“The numerical simulations seem to show that it is possible for perihelia to eventually reach distances as far away as 40 AU. However, CR105’s perihelion if 4.3 AU farther out than that (almost the distance from the Sun to Jupiter!) Therefore, the simulations do not seem to produce objects like this, and we believe that for the moment 2000 CR105 should NOT be classed as an SDO.”

A comet’s odd orbit hints at hidden planet
Ron Cowen
Science News
Week of April 7, 2001; Vol. 159, No. 14 , p. 213
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20010407/fob4.asp

“The astronomers concede that feeble and random pushes from Neptune could have slowly nudged 2000 CR105 into its current orbit. However, preliminary analysis suggests this scenario isn’t likely, note Gladman, Matthew Holman of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., and their collaborators... According to one theory, Neptune and Uranus first formed between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn and were then flung out to greater distances from the sun. If that kick propelled Neptune into the Kuiper belt before the planet settled into its current nearly circular orbit, its gravity could have caused the orbits of several objects like 2000 CR105 to stretch into elongated trajectories. Alternatively, the comet’s orbit could be the handiwork of an as-yet-unseen planet whose mass lies somewhere between that of Earth’s moon and Mars, the researchers say. It’s likely that such an object would have coalesced in the outer solar system from the same debris that formed Neptune, Uranus, and the cores of Jupiter and Saturn, Holman notes... If the proposed planet is as massive as Mars, it would have to lie some 200 AU from the sun — about 7 times Neptune’s distance — Holman calculates. Were it closer, observers would have spotted it.”

[Five] Scenarios for the Origin of the Orbits of the Trans-Neptunian Objects 2000 CR105 and 2003 VB12 (Sedna)2004 The Astronomical Journal 128 2564-2576   doi:10.1086/424617
Alessandro Morbidelli and Harold F. Levison
http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/1538-3881/128/5/2564
http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/1538-3881/128/5/2564/204131.web.pdf

[SunkenCiv]

2000 CR105

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[SunkenCiv]

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