In the motions of distant solar system objects, astronomers find hints of Planet Nine

[Zorro]

The case for Planet Nine is growing. Two new findings presented at a planetary science meeting in Pasadena have uncovered hints for the existence of this distant, mysterious world in the motions of known solar system objects.

The results could help astronomers home in on their otherworldly target, which — if it really is out there — could fundamentally alter our understanding of the solar system.

The hunt for Planet Nine (also known as Planet X) began in earnest in 2014 after astronomers Scott Sheppard and Chadwick Trujillo found 2012 VP113, a planetoid nicknamed “Biden,” after the vice president. Its closest point to the sun in its orbit is 80 astronomical units — that is, 80 times the Earth-Sun distance of 93 million miles.

Objects like 2012 VP113 exist far beyond the typical denizens of the Kuiper belt, the icy ring of debris that stretches from Neptune’s orbit at 30 AU out to 50 AU (and whose largest member is distant Pluto, sitting around 49 AU).

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-planet-nine-new-evidence-20161022-snap-story.html

[bananas]

1. This is the fifth time we've discovered Planet Nine

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninth_planet_(disambiguation)

Ninth planet, Planet Nine or Planet 9 is a term applied to many planets beyond Neptune . The term may also refer to:

Planets

Pluto, considered to be the ninth planet from its discovery in 1930 until its reclassification as a dwarf planet in 2006

Neptune, the ninth-closest planet from the Sun from 1979 to 1999 (with Pluto then considered the eighth-closest planet from the Sun)

2 Pallas, asteroid considered to be the ninth planet in chronological discovery order from 1802 until its reclassification as a minor planet in the 1850s

Jupiter, considered the ninth-closest planet from the Sun from 1807 to 1845 as a result of the discovery of minor planets

Planet Nine, a hypothetical large ninth planet in the Solar System first proposed in 2014

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

2. Call it something else,

Calling it Planet 9 is deliberately belittling to Clyde Tombaugh.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

4. How about Planet 9.02?

To keep it from being confused for the rock formerly known as Pluto, Planet 9.

[Warren DeMontague]

10. No, giving Pluto some sort of special status just because that's what people learned in school

decades ago, doesn't do actual justice to either Mr. Tombaugh or science in general.

We adjust our understanding of the Universe to the facts and data, not the other way around. Simple truth is, if Pluto is a planet, so is Eris. So are potentially a whole bunch of other Transuranian or Kuiper Belt Objects.

But people don't want to hear that, because they like the little diorama with the 9 styrofoam balls.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

12. This issue left science behind and devolved into a dick measuring contest a long time ago

I will go one further for you, Ceres is a planet too.

We know Pluto and we know Neptune's captive moon Triton, then we have a bunch of faint points of light a couple of pixels across. If the Kuiper Belt turns out to be full of large Pluto and Triton like bodies with complex geology and not just a bunch of loosely accreted bits of ice and rock, okay lets have that conversation but we don't know that. The asteroid belt yielded only Ceres which was demoted before any meaningful observation that might have differentiated it from the rest of the potato shaped bits of rock occurred.

[Warren DeMontague]

13. Well, that's the whole point. If Pluto is categorized as a "planet", we have thousands of planets

Which is why categorizing such objects as dwarf planets or Kuiper Belt Objects makes more sense, because none of them fall into the same broad category as the 8 major planets.

The definition worked out by NDGT and the IAU in the 2006 works just fine:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAU_definition_of_planet

IAU definition of planet
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the formal definition established in 2006. For prior usage, see Definition of planet.
Euler diagram showing the types of bodies in the Solar System.

The definition of planet set in Prague, Czech Republic in August 2006 by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) states that, in the Solar System, a planet is a celestial body which:

is in orbit around the Sun,
has sufficient mass to assume hydrostatic equilibrium (a nearly round shape), and
has "cleared the neighborhood" around its orbit.

A non-satellite body fulfilling only the first two of these criteria is classified as a "dwarf planet". According to the IAU, "planets and dwarf planets are two distinct classes of objects". A non-satellite body fulfilling only the first criterion is termed a "small Solar System body" (SSSB). Initial drafts planned to include dwarf planets as a subcategory of planets, but because this could have led to the addition of several dozens of planets into the Solar System, this draft was eventually dropped. The definition was a controversial one, and has drawn both support and criticism from different astronomers, but has remained in use.

According to this definition, there are eight known planets in the Solar System. The definition distinguishes planets from smaller bodies and is not useful outside the Solar System, where smaller bodies cannot be found yet.

it's only a "dick measuring contest" for people who have thrown unreasonable emotional or sentimental attachments onto this topic.


Also, you are incorrect. We KNOW Eris is at least as massive an object as Pluto. This is not some speculation. Like Pluto, Eris also has at least one moon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eris_(dwarf_planet)

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

15. We don't know there are thousands of objects like Pluto

Eris is a cluster of pixels of light, I hope I live long enough to see it and whatever else is out there in more detail. The IAU definition is widely ignored because it is illogical. Any criteria in which any of the terrestrial planets would cease to be planets if they were to trade places with Pluto or Ceres is ridiculous.

We have created a bizarre taxonomy grouping together objects, of which only two have been observed in any detail and the observed characteristics of Pluto and Triton don't favor lumping them in with umpteen potato shaped bits of rock. If we truly find in time that Pluto is indeed one of many or maybe even a runt out there well okay then, lets have this conversation. But this rush to judgement based on a perceived too great abundance of points of light has been made before.

In fact it was precisely a dick measuring contest that began between Clyde Tombaugh and an astronomer named Brian Marsden, that their proteges were all too happy to continue after their respective deaths.

[Warren DeMontague]

16. No, Eris is NOT a "cluster of pixels"

If you think you know better than Mike Brown and the IAU, I cant help you.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

17. Well if you have better observations than Hubble's please share them with everyone

Mike Brown would probably like to see them too.

[Warren DeMontague]

18. Im sure Mike Brown would be able to explain in detail why our knowledge of Eris's mass etc

Isnt just some crazy speculation someone made up on a whim.

Look, I know it's scary to consider that the Universe is more complicated than what we learned in elementary school, but that is how science works.

If you "replaced ceres with a major planet" would it still qualify? Probably depends. Mars cleared its own orbit, but size wise is close to Ganymede, a moon. Ceres hasnt. Again, the IAU has come up with a working definition of what "planet" means. Pluto and Ceres dont qualify.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

19. Huh?

It is the people latching on to the classical canon of planets that Pluto and the Kuiper belt upset who seem to be struggling with the potential for complexity and just trying to sweep umpteen barely observed bodies into a giant "other" category.

The IAU definition was crafted to exclude Pluto to settle an argument. Ceres was previously snuffed out in an earlier rush to judgement that long predated the IAU decision. The space between Mars and Jupiter seemed too crowded so lets call them asteroids. Except one of those things was not like the others.

It's been fun, I have a plane to catch.

[Warren DeMontague]

20. Until pretty recently, Pluto was "just a few barely observed pixels", too

Yet from that data we were able to glean a great deal of information about it.

Similarly, we know a whole bunch about Eris, Humea, Makemake, etc. i dont know why this is so difficult to acknowledge.

Yes, ceres is different, thats why it fits in the newly created "dwarf planet" category.

Look, you can call Pluto whatever you want, it doesnt care. But you dont get to discard or write off the solid science regarding kuiper belt objects like Eris and what we KNOW about them, sorry.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

21. I'm not discarding anything, I want to know more.

The issue with Ceres was the rush to judgement, they didn't know how the asteroids differed from one another, they just knew it felt like there were too many points of light in that part of the sky. I think this new distinction is another rush to judgement based on an overwhelming volume of discoveries and the desire for a convenient "other".

If there are so many Pluto and Triton clones out there that we run out of classic deities and start having to assign hexadecimals well okay, but we don't know that. If it turns out that discovering large Pluto sized bodies out there is actually quite difficult because there just aren't that many large one's out there to begin with well then where are we?

I hope I live long enough to find out one way or the other.

[Warren DeMontague]

22. it is true that until 2006, "Planet" had no commonly accepted definition.

But I respect Mike Brown. I think he's done great work, so I get a little defensive. Future generations will remember his name as much if not more than Tombaugh's, IMHO.

I agree about wanting to learn and know as much as possible. It's as close to a prime directive as I think consciousness can want.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

23. If he finds the long hypothesized Planet X I don't doubt that is true.

as "Pluto Killer" though I'm not sure, not very many scholarly debates find their way into popular history. What was the last one? Keynes vs. Hayek?

[Warren DeMontague]

27. Eris is at least as significant a discovery as Pluto.

That's my opinion. It's not about killing Pluto so much as discovering a whole new class of objects of which Pluto is just the closest one.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

29. The only person who was talking down the discovery of Eris was Mike Brown himself

If it doesn't get his due for that, it's on him.

[TeamPooka]

3. Let me know when we've reached the 8th dimension.

[PJMcK]

6. I went to a party last night

When I awoke, I was in the 9th dimension. Crossing the 8/9 barrier is tough.

[TeamPooka]

7. Buckaroo Banzai knows

[Buckeye_Democrat]

14. Some string theorists are up to 26 dimensions now!

http://www.dummies.com/education/science/physics/bosonic-string-theory-25-space-dimensions/

[Orrex]

5. When are we going?

REAL SOON!

[TeamPooka]

8. What's that watermelon doing there?

[Orrex]

9. The most important thing...

Is that this vindicates the nine-planet solar system as described in the acclaimed 1984 documentary Ice Pirates.

[pinboy3niner]

11. Planet 9 from Outer Space

[bananas]

25. Planet X is Planet 10, Planet IX is Planet 9

There will probably come a day when a spacecraft lands on the wrong planet because they forgot to convert between Roman and Arabic numerals.
https://www.wired.com/2010/11/1110mars-climate-observer-report/

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

31. Planet X is Planet X

A long-standing hypothesis that there is a large planet beyond Neptune, it was called Planet X before the discovery of Pluto and again when it was realized that Pluto was too small to explain the distortions attributed to it.

[lindysalsagal]

26. I know! Let's send our greatest Astronaut there to explore: Donald Trump!

He knows more about rockets and space travel and planets than all the scientists. Believe me.