Live data from Hacker News

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

groups.io

191–200 of 330 posts

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

#191

For reference 1 AU (Astronomical Unit) is about 150 million km. Saturn ranges from being about 7 to 11 AU away from Earth. Voyager 1 is 152 AU away. This object is excitingly close and will be fun to study.

That's terrifying, no? A whole planet (yes a dwarf one, but still a PLANET) is just rogue and will wander through the orbit of Sol as it pleases.

It's not a rogue planet, that implies Interstellar. This is an object with a very long orbit that takes it out to he Oort cloud but still - a permanent resident of the solar system.

It's basically just an exceptionally large comet. It's not Melancholia.

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

#192
post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s pronounced your-uh-ness by pretty much everyone (or your-ah-noose if your going by the greek god and not the Latin copy/paste.)

Nope. I say your-anus.

You might but that is an incorrect pronunciation and the only time I’ve heard that (other than from people who aren’t into astronomy) was in elementary school and even then the teacher told us it was a common, but wrong, pronunciation.

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

#193
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's terrifying, no? A whole planet (yes a dwarf one, but still a PLANET) is just rogue and will wander through the orbit of Sol as it pleases.

It's not a rogue planet, that implies Interstellar. This is an object with a very long orbit that takes it out to he Oort cloud but still - a permanent resident of the solar system. It's basically just an exceptionally large comet. It's not Melancholia.

Love that movie

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

#194
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 perihel…

[deleted]

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

#195
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a dwarf planet of ~ 200 km diameter. The thing has a miniscule gravity well, it won't matter much compared to launching from earth and matching orbits with it, i think...

For comparison, that's about 10% of the Moon's diameter, i.e. 0.1% of its volume. (The mass ratios are probably within that 0.1% ballpark, but can't tell for sure until we know more about its composition.)

[deleted]

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

#196
post #193
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a rogue planet, that implies Interstellar. This is an object with a very long orbit that takes it out to he Oort cloud but still - a permanent resident of the solar system. It's basically just an exceptionally large comet. It's not Melancholia.

Love that movie

It needs a sequel.

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

#197
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The speed of Rosetta's comet at perigee is, I think, significantly grater than the max speed of this dwarf planet. The dwarf planet has a much higher apogee, of course, but escape velocity, corresponding to infinite apogee, is finite and not that large, and Rosetta had to go much deeper into the Sun's gravity well. So, as a non-expert who hasn't done the numbers, I'd guess matching pace with the dwarf planet would be…

Somewhat unintuitively, thanks to the Oberth effect, it can be easier to reach escape velocity closer to an object, (Humorously portrayed in https://xkcd.com/1242 ). Aside: if you are looking to learn more, I cannot recommend Kerbal Space Program enough.

Are you sure that the right xkcd link?

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

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if it can be stopped in theory, but only if humanity pulls together and gets something right for once?

An object that side won't be dissuaded with any of the firepower available to us. We'd be better off trying to build bunkers or something.

I think it's largely a matter of how much advance warning we have. If we discover an object hundreds of kilometers in diameter on an orbit that will intersect with Earth in 100 years, then we'll have a better opportunity to nudge it early on so it misses entirely or develop a big enough bomb to turn it into a pile of gravel and ice chips that will (mostly) miss the Earth.

The biggest fusion bomb detonated on Earth was Tsar Bomba at 50 megatons, though the full yield is thought to have been more like 100 if the Russians hadn't deliberately nerfed it over radiation concerns.

Is there a theoretical upper limit to the yield of fusion bombs? I assume no one is building them bigger simply because there's no realistic military use for such things that wouldn't be better served by smaller accurately targeted nuclear bombs. Tsar Bomba was detonated in 1961, and no one has seen fit to repeat the experiment, though I suppose one or more of the major nuclear powers may have a modern warhead with equivalent yield that they just haven't tested or announced to the world.

Wikipedia is saying that there's thought to be a practical limit of around 6 megatons of yield per metric ton of bomb mass [1], and actual nuclear devices have achieved a little over 5, so I guess after some point there's not much reason to make a bigger bomb when you can just make two smaller ones.

This scenario is starting to sound a bit like a long-running Factorio game where the goal is to launch a rocket once a minute. With, say, a one year lead time could the economies of Earth launch a starship-style rocket with a half-dozen or so Tsar Bomba sized warhead once per day indefinitely? I think so. Would it be enough to destroy a dwarf planet? Probably not, but maybe it could knock loose enough chunks to nudge it into a slightly different orbit.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon_yield

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

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So pretty much between Saturn and Uranus.... Even as an adult that still always makes me chuckle. I can't help it.

It’s pronounced your-uh-ness by pretty much everyone (or your-ah-noose if your going by the greek god and not the Latin copy/paste.)

Leave it to HN to explain grammar, some history and a bit of etymology in response to a childish joke comment.

And, that's why this place is great.

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

#200
post #23

Is this something we could plan and manage to launch an orbiter/lander to in time? Has anyone thought about the possibility of slapping something like a telescope on that and letting it beam back data and images from veryyyyy far out eventually?

If you launch your telescope on a spacecraft and get it to match speed with the dwarf planet (which is necessary for a soft landing), there's not much point in actually attaching it to the dwarf planet. That just blocks the view of half the sky. Also, there will be nothing to see out there other than the dwarf planet itself.

> there's not much point in actually attaching it to the dwarf planet.

I've been thinking that attaching a sabatier reactor to a probe and sending it to land on an extra solar body such as Oumuamua that contains the ingredients that the sabatier needs to produce fuel would be a great way to get a probe that sends signals back to Earth well after a nuclear battery has died.

Post reply on HN