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A dwarf planet coming within 11 AU of the sun over the next 10 years

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Re: A dwarf planet coming within 11 AU of the sun over the next 10 years

#11

Post by orliesaurus »

_Microft wrote: post #7
orliesaurus wrote: post #5

I wonder how/IF this will cause anything to spike solar flares? that's what's scary to me - all it takes is one big burst and bye bye to our tech....

No, no need to worry. Coronal mass ejections causing geomagnetic storms are really something to worry about but this thing is just a piece of rock flying around the Sun at very far distances (from our point of view). It is coming no closer than eleven astronomical units to Sun (1 AU is the mean distance of Earth to Sun).

Yeah I totally misunderstood the distances - my bad.

Re: A dwarf planet coming within 11 AU of the sun over the next 10 years

#12

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

messe wrote: post #8
orliesaurus wrote: post #5

I wonder how/IF this will cause anything to spike solar flares? that's what's scary to me - all it takes is one big burst and bye bye to our tech....

I’m not seeing the relation other than it’s also in space (so is the earth and everything on it by the way). Why would this do anything to spike solar flares? It’s a lump of rock and ice 130km across, further out than Saturn. What possible mechanism do you think there is that would cause that to occur?

> It’s a lump of rock and ice 130km across

That's it? I was hoping for something at least the size of Texas...

Re: A dwarf planet coming within 11 AU of the sun over the next 10 years

#14

Post by messe »

jessriedel wrote: post #9
MKais wrote: post #4

How fast can we build and launch something to rendezvous with this dwarf planet?

New Horizons took a nearly straight shot to Pluto (just stopping by Jupiter on the way for a gravity assist). That trip took 9 years to travel 40 AU (not at constant speed, of courses, since it's constantly being drawn toward the Sun). This dwarf planet makes its closest approach at 10 AU, so you could do a fly by in less than 3 years if you wanted to pay for it. However, the science return from a flyby would be limi…

Getting into orbit would be rather difficult, as the probe would have have to match the planets velocity at perihelion. My instinct says it’s probably just on the edge of doable (although I’m not sure on which side), but I haven’t crunched the numbers. It would almost certainly need to be launched on a Delta-IV or Falcon Heavy class vehicle.

EDIT: s/perigee/perihelion. I could say periapse and be neutral, but perihelion sounds cool.

Re: A dwarf planet coming within 11 AU of the sun over the next 10 years

#16

Post by messe »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #12
messe wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not seeing the relation other than it’s also in space (so is the earth and everything on it by the way). Why would this do anything to spike solar flares? It’s a lump of rock and ice 130km across, further out than Saturn. What possible mechanism do you think there is that would cause that to occur?

> It’s a lump of rock and ice 130km across That's it? I was hoping for something at least the size of Texas...

It’s almost certainly bigger than an olympic swimming pool, and definitely larger than an American football field.

Re: A dwarf planet coming within 11 AU of the sun over the next 10 years

#17

Post by clajiness »

ptcrash wrote: post #15

Apologies if this is an obvious question but I'm not familiar with astronomy. Will this dwarf planet just pass through our solar system or is there a chance it will start to orbit our sun?

> its orbit takes it from just beyond the orbit of Saturn (10.9 AU) all the way out to the Oort Cloud

It looks like it currently orbits the sun.

Re: A dwarf planet coming within 11 AU of the sun over the next 10 years

#18

Post by thechao »

orliesaurus wrote: post #10
messe wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not seeing the relation other than it’s also in space (so is the earth and everything on it by the way). Why would this do anything to spike solar flares? It’s a lump of rock and ice 130km across, further out than Saturn. What possible mechanism do you think there is that would cause that to occur?

@messe guess you're right - I'll take the downvotes...

You voiced your comment as more speculative rather than as a question. Please don’t stop asking questions!

Re: A dwarf planet coming within 11 AU of the sun over the next 10 years

#19

Post by hownottowrite »

orliesaurus wrote: post #5

I wonder how/IF this will cause anything to spike solar flares? that's what's scary to me - all it takes is one big burst and bye bye to our tech....

It won’t do anything.

Also, Carrington class events are very rare. You should worry more about space junk crashing into important things and even then it’s not much of a worry.

https://warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressreleases/likelihood...

Re: A dwarf planet coming within 11 AU of the sun over the next 10 years

#20

Post by ordu »

ptcrash wrote: post #15

Apologies if this is an obvious question but I'm not familiar with astronomy. Will this dwarf planet just pass through our solar system or is there a chance it will start to orbit our sun?

If it manage to do a gravity assist maneuver around some existing planet, it might. Probability of such is very low, I believe. Moreover, I think if there was any chance, scientists already knew about it. If they keep silence, then no, there are no chances.
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