Is Planet X guiding dwarf planets around our solar system?

[Judi Lynn]

By Chelsea Gohd | Published: Tuesday, October 9, 2018

Astronomers have found a dwarf planet out beyond Neptune called “The Goblin” because of its initial discovery around Halloween. The Goblin, officially named 2015 TG387, joins other small objects far out in our solar system, and it adds to a tantalizing theory about another much more massive “Planet X” hiding beyond Neptune.

The Goblin’s Journey

Carnegie astronomer Scott Sheppard searches for and studies far-off objects like The Goblin. Over the past few years, they’ve noticed something interesting about the ragtag group of smaller bodies circling the outer reaches of our solar system. Though you’d expect their orbits to be random, Sheppard says that they all seem to be in harmony with each other. The planetary dance is a clue that something with a much larger gravitational pull is shepherding them — Planet X.

“Finding all these objects in a similar place,” Sheppard explained, “suggests that there is a big planet out there that’s shepherding The Goblin and other objects.”

While researchers aren’t absolutely sure what Planet X’s orbit might look like, they have an idea, Sheppard explained. His research team has been running orbit simulations, and The Goblin fits into them neatly.

More:
http://www.astronomy.com/news/2018/10/is-planet-x-guiding-dwarf-planets-around-our-solar-system

[Pachamama]

1. Planet X - Whammy KISS from B-52's...

https://m.

Love them and saw this performance

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

2. Hmmm. Interesting idea. I'll have to ask my son the astronomer about this.

Said son is in an astronomy PhD program at a University in the Washington DC area at present. His focus of research is exo planets (those planets outside our solar system but within our galaxy) but he has an astonishing range of knowledge about all things astronomical.

A couple of days ago we had a conversation about the recently discovered dwarf planet. According to him it has no name, just a license plate, as he put it. Which means the name "Goblin" is far less than official. Hope it doesn't stick. Anyway, the important point was that this planet provides interesting, but not conclusive, evidence of a large planet X out there.