Giant Stealth Planet May Explain Rain of Comets from Solar System's Edge

Space.com ^ | 12/01/2010 | Space.com

[ZOOKER]

I can't find "After Worlds Collide", even the book...

According to Wikipedia, George Pal was going to film After Worlds Collide, the sequel to WWC, but could not get financing. A pity.

[Straight Vermonter]

Wouldn't something four times the mass of Jupiter cause said comets to fall towards itself rather than towards a teeny little planet far, far away?

Yes objects would be pulled towards it as the planet passed. Unless the objects were very near they would be unlikely to be pulled completely in. The result would be the comet (or some other object) being left with an usually elliptical orbit that would eventually send it close to the sun.

[darth]

Brian Marsden, the Australian astronomer, who recently died, wrote a book about comets/asteroids bombarding Earth.

There is evidence for periodicity in the bombardments; about 30-33 million year intervals IIRC. That makes us due for another bombardment any day now.

Oort Cloud objects are so far out that it takes very little to nudge them into a parabolic path to the inner Solar System. Marsden warned that it is not Near Earth Objects that we should beware of, but large bodies which suddenly appear from much farther out.

[warchild9]

I had a colleague who worked with Sitchin on some esoteric translation job. He said the man was cranky and incredibly talented, and surprisingly disorganized.

I’ve read all his books, by the way. I realize he was wrong in many of his interpretations, but that doesn’t stop his work from being fascinating.

[SunkenCiv]

So far. :') The same can be said for the Oort Cloud. The focussed comets has been seen (I think his name is John Matese) as evidence for an as-yet undiscovered big buddy on the outskirts, although there are those who think that's North-Hemispheric-Centric thinking. :') Thanks KoRn.

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[jmacusa]

Stealth planet eh? Calling Commander Cody and The Lost Planet Airmen!!

[SunkenCiv]

Zecharia Sitchin’s Errors: An Overview
by Michael S. Heiser http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/925869/posts?page=80#80

[SunkenCiv]

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[Quix]

Thanks.

[BenLurkin]

Excellent.........http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfLs9JJ_p7M

[SunkenCiv]

from the X-Planets keyword:

• The Search for Distant Objects in the Solar System Using Spacewatch
• Comet's course hints at mystery planet [ from 2001 ]
• Mass limit on Nemesis
• Nemesis: Does the Sun Have a 'Companion'?
• Search on for Death Star that throws out deadly comets..
• Stellar encounters as the origin of distant Solar System objects in highly eccentric orbits
• Scientists snap first images of brown dwarf in planetary system
• Planet X: The Facts, The Myths
• New Trojan Asteroid Hints At Huge Neptunian Cloud
• X-Planets ( extrasolar planets, and the various planets X )
• Death Spiral: Why Theorists Can't Make Solar Systems
• Astronomers Had it Wrong: Most Stars are Single

actual data:

• Mysterious deep-space object raises questions on Solar System's origins
• Astronomers Discover Apparent "Outer Edge" To The Solar System [2000]
• NASA Prepares To Launch First Probe To The Kuiper Belt
• Composition of a Comet Poses a Puzzle for Scientists
• Voyager 2 finds our solar system is squashed
• Pioneer [gravitational] anomaly put to the test
• Aluminium helps date solar system

KBOs etc:

• On the Fringe: Astronomers look to the Kuiper belt for clues to the solar system's history
• Questioning Dwarfs [hi-ho, hi-ho, he means a KBO]
• Meteorite's Organic Matter Older Than The Sun, Study Says

comets:

• NASA launches probe to study edge of solar system [IBEX in orbit]
• Astronomers discover youthful icy objects in outer solar system
• Sun's origins sought in solar wind
• Clandestine comets found in main asteroid belt -- Earth oceans origin
• Astronomers poised to apply novel way to look for comets beyond Neptune
• Not Enough Comets in the Cupboard

nature out of its course:

• Mercury found to have comet-like appearance by satellites looking at sun
• Dwarf planet 'becoming a comet' [ 2003 EL61 ]
• Astronomers surprised by star with comet-like tail
• Rogue Planet Find Makes Astronomers Ponder Theory
• First Stellar Outcast Discovered by Astronomers (Intergalactic traveller)
• Outcast Star Zooms Out of Milky Way Galaxy
• Pluto Might Have Rings

large impacts, Mars:

• Red Planet's Ancient Equator Located
• New Theory: Catastrophe Created Mars' Moons

Moon:

• "Planemos" May Give Rise to Planets, Moons
• Long-Destroyed Fifth Planet May Have Caused Lunar Cataclysm, Researchers Say

Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs:

• ZetaTalk: Whiplash
• ZetaTalk: Dance Begins (Ongoing Planet X End-of-the-World Update)
• The Great Planet X Debate,11p-12a PST,coast to coast

[SunkenCiv]

my pleasure.

[Little Pig]

Ok, for starters, submitting a hypothesis based on an observation is exactly what has happened here:

Scientists observe a pattern in the arrival of comets from the Oort cloud.

Hypothesis: something large out there periodically passes through the cloud, perturbing the orbits of the ice chunks there thus causing them to begin falling in towards the inner solar system. Next question, what could the object be? Most likely candidate is a planet-sized or larger body. Given the number of binary star systems we have observed, and the structure of our own system, candidate is narrowed down to a category of star called a “brown dwarf”, that is, an object that didn’t quite reach fusion density.

You’re making this out like brown dwarfs are something we made up, and that we know nothing about space beyond the orbit of Pluto. This is false. Here’s the info:

This hypothetical partner to our sun would have formed at the same time as the rest of the solar system, and would therefore be about the same age. It may have had a temperature somewhat hotter than Jupiter did at the time of its formation, but has cooled (like all other non-fusing bodies in our solar system) over time since then. As a sidebar, Jupiter probably did fuse hydrogen for a brief time after its formation as well. This body however, formed out past the orbit of Pluto, in a region called the Oort cloud, which is largely chunks of frozen gases and other ice that didn’t get drawn into the planetary accretion disk. The Oort cloud orbits the sun about one light year out. This is still well within the range for a binary star pair. Anything that far out isn’t going to get any benefit from the energy of our sun. It would have to provide its own energy, or it will become all but invisible through 5 billion years of radiational cooling.

So, brown dwarfs are known objects. We’ve seen them in other places. We know how they form, and their structure (big, Jupiter-like, though more dense). The Oort cloud is pretty much accepted as existing, though direct observation is difficult (oort objects are likely no more than a mile across, something which is hard to spot at a distance of a light-year). Thus, *if* there is a brown dwarf out there, we know what it should look like. And, we know what the conditions are like where it might be. What remains now is to put together the right instrument to detect this object, if it exists, and determine its orbit.

The *only* missing information here is the existence of a brown dwarf in *our* solar system. Their existence elsewhere is confirmed, and the existence of the Oort cloud is widely accepted based on observations of comets that do come in to the inner solar system. The scientists believe, based on those comet observations, that there is periodicity, and that implies something moving through the cometary cloud, since comet orbits are so far out otherwise that they wouldn’t be perturbed by objects in the inner system. *That’s* what they’re testing. They haven’t published anything but the hypothesis. I studied astronomy, so I’m fairly up-to-date on what we know. This would only seem far-fetched or “made up” if one didn’t have current knowledge of the frequency of binary-star systems, solar system formation, and stars.

[UCANSEE2]

That makes us due for another bombardment any day now.

"Well, isn't that just dandy?"

[reagan_fanatic]

They suggest that during its orbit, this red dwarf or brown dwarf star would regularly enter the Oort cloud, jostling the orbits of many comets there and causing some to fall toward Earth.

Well, I guess I can forget about putting a new roof on my house next spring.

[darth]

Am I paranoid or is it my Jedi sixth sense?

Note that food prices, especially grains, have jumped. Heard the other day that over 50% of all freeze dried food sold is going to the federal government.

If there was a big rock with our name on it headed this way, the government would quietly begin building shelters for the nomenklatura and stocking them with food. They would NOT tell us peons.

Time to consider stocking up on some more food from Walton Feed.

[NeoCaveman]

OK who had “Planet X” in the TETOWAKI office pool?

[TigersEye]

Thanks, that's great. Not really my genre of music but I always liked that one a lot. It appeals to my dark depressive side. ;^)

Maybe it was actually a prophecy about Zer0.

Black hole son won't you come

and wash away the rain...

Hope and Change come and gone

and now we're all in pain...

[chessplayer]

“Is Tyche really out there?

The fact of Tyche’s existence is questionable, since the pattern seen in the outer Oort cloud is not seen in the inner Oort”

Chasing ghosts again.

[WorldviewDad]

I have not stated that “brown dwarfs are something we made up”, in fact I never talked about brown drawfs.

But again we are talking about “something large out there” that I guess we are now identifying as a brown dwarf, that is the “hypothetical partner to our sun” that we are now giving an age to and a temperature to and assuming that it is “all but invisible”.

I am sorry but “the only missing information” is not if a brown dwarf is in our solar system but the missing information is any actual information about the object we are talking about. Your own statements point to this...”hypothetical partner”, “all but invisible”, “if there is a brown dwarf out there”, “if it exists”.

Something may be out there...and there probably is. My issue is with adding all this “information” that people read as “FACTS” when at this point we do not have any facts to point to. We have observed something about the comets and their pattern, this would be the facts that we know at this time. What is causing this pattern is now in the area of hypothesis but at this time we do not have facts to back up this hypothesis as fact, are there other possibilities for what could be causing the pattern? I do not know, but to have a hypothesis that then creates a planet or brown dwarf that we then add an age and temp and surface and size and...when we do not know at this time that this brown dwarf even exists seems unwise.