A 1980s space telescope may have seen planet nine
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Re: A 1980s space telescope may have seen planet nine
#2Relevant part:
For the recent work, [Michael] Rowan-Robinson redid his search from nearly 40 years ago and found three points in the data from late summer 1983 that indicate some object moving across the sky. The data sources sit low on the galactic plane, though, meaning that the satellite was taking the data through plenty of dusty, cloudy material that can emit infrared light. In other words, the work is something of a long shot. And Rowan-Robinson is well aware of that. “Given the poor quality of the IRAS detections, at the very limit of the survey, and in a very difficult part of the sky for far infrared detections, the probability of the candidate being real is not overwhelming,” he wrote in his paper.
Re: A 1980s space telescope may have seen planet nine
#3Mike Brown recently wrote a summary of his and Konstantin Batygin's paper 'The orbit of Planet Nine'. By looking at Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) whose orbits appear skewed by the invisible gravity of a possible Planet Nine, accounting for observation bias, and running a ton of simulations and MCMC, they concluded: if it exists, Planet Nine has a mass of 6.2 (+2.2/-1.3) Earth masses and a perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) of 300 (+85/-60) AU. The median distance at aphelion is around 500 AU. Those are not small error bars, but they do constrain the search, and this proposed finding of 225±15 AU and a mass of 3-5 ME could just ~barely~ fit.
The summary: https://findplanetnine.blogspot.com/2021/08/the-orbit-of-pla...
We’ve been covering this search in Orbital Index (https://orbitalindex.com), subscribe if you want updates.
Re: A 1980s space telescope may have seen planet nine
#4Mike Brown recently wrote a summary of his and Konstantin Batygin's paper 'The orbit of Planet Nine'. By looking at Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) whose orbits appear skewed by the invisible gravity of a possible Planet Nine, accounting for observation bias, and running a ton of simulations and MCMC, they concluded: if it exists, Planet Nine has a mass of 6.2 (+2.2/-1.3) Earth masses and a perihelion (closest approach to…
Also, Mike Brown's free 'The Science of the Solar System' course on Coursera is excellent. Highly recommended. https://www.coursera.org/learn/solar-system
Re: A 1980s space telescope may have seen planet nine
#5If they don't name it Yuggoth I will be disappointed.
Re: A 1980s space telescope may have seen planet nine
#6If they don't name it Yuggoth I will be disappointed. https://lovecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Yuggoth
There’s all kinds of silly names they could borrow from stories hypothesizing its existence. Nemesis, Nibiru, Vulcan, and Planet X, just for starters. But in all likelihood it will end up as something much more anodyne.
Re: A 1980s space telescope may have seen planet nine
#7Here's a youtube video by Anton Petrov describing the paper https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSyAO4fGZOE
Re: A 1980s space telescope may have seen planet nine
#8If Planet 9 contains rare earth metals, mining and manufacturing facilities could be built there. This should help alleviate the chip shortage.
Re: A 1980s space telescope may have seen planet nine
#9If Planet 9 contains rare earth metals, mining and manufacturing facilities could be built there. This should help alleviate the chip shortage.
Is this performance art?
Do some napkin math on the quantities of fuel alone required to do this.
Re: A 1980s space telescope may have seen planet nine
#10If this object did exist, wouldn't it be classified as a dwarf planet since, like Pluto, with a highly elliptical orbit it would be difficult to clear it of other Kuiper belt objects?