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curiousuburb
Antimatter Man
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: that interweb thing
 
2016-01-21, 19:05

... aaaand we're potentially back to Nine Planets again . BBC story here

Tracking the wacky orbits of the Dwarf planets has led scientists to theorise a new "Planet Nine" that is predicted to be 10 times Earth mass (not quite Neptune sized) in a highly elliptical orbit that might extend out to a maximum between 500 and 1200 AU. (Waaay past Neptune... and Pluto... and Sedna... etc.)

Phil Plait Bad Astronomy explanation here

Slate video here which helps to explain the diagram below where Sedna's orbit is shown in Magenta and Neptune (while also captioned as Magenta) has an orbit too small to see in this still frame.


The 'ninth planet' - where to look?
The six most distant known objects in the Solar System with orbits exclusively beyond Neptune (magenta) all line up in a single direction. Why? Drs Brown and Batygin argue that this is because a massive planet (orange) is anti-aligned with these objects. Can telescopes now find this planet? Could the evidence already be in observational data but no-one has yet recognised it? The hunt is on. <Image courtesy of Brown and Batygin>

Technical paper here

All those who believe in telekinesis, raise my hand.

Last edited by curiousuburb : 2016-01-21 at 20:21.
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