Posted on 03/11/2007 9:00:23 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
In 2005, Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology and his team discovered a large body in the outer solar system. It was not the first distant object that had been found in the Kuiper Belt -- the region is composed of hundreds of icy objects encircling our solar system. But it was the largest known Kuiper Belt object, just beating out Pluto in size, and so their discovery was heralded as "the tenth planet." ...In the final part of this five-part lecture given at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Brown answers questions from the audience. Questions include "Why did the name of Xena get changed to Eris?" and "Could there be another undiscovered planet in our solar system?" ...Q: Is there is there a good reason to believe there could be an object the size of Mars far away from the sun?
MB: It's what we in the field call hand waving... It is a fairly inescapable conclusion that something large is out there. It doesn't have to be the size of Mars. Maybe it's the size of Mercury, or half the size, maybe it's the size of the Earth. But simply by one detection of Sedna, you can follow that chain and say, "One Sedna means 60 other things, maybe 30, maybe 90, but if there are 60 things that are about the size of Pluto, the largest one is going to be about the size of Mars, or maybe Mercury, maybe Earth." The actual size of the largest one is extremely uncertain, but there are going to be many large objects out in that region that is going to be found over the next 5 or 10 years, so stay tuned."
(Excerpt) Read more at astrobio.net ...
Far-out worlds, just waiting to be foundIN THE dark reaches of the solar system lurk swarms of hidden worlds. Too small and too distant to reflect sunlight, they have remained under the cover of darkness for billions of years. But now the outer solar system is giving up its secrets. And with them comes an astonishing claim: "It's quite possible that there is a halo of planets surrounding our solar system, just waiting to be found," says Eugene Chiang, an astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley.
by Stuart Clark
New Scientist
23 July 2005
What makes Chiang's claim so surprising is the sheer number and size of these planets. Weighing more than Mars, they dwarf Sedna and Quaoar, the largest rocky bodies spotted circling the sun beyond Pluto.
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I seldom complain about rhymes! LOL!
:')
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