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A 1980s space telescope may have seen planet nine

gizmodo.com

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Re: A 1980s space telescope may have seen planet nine

#31

Post by _Microft »

starwind wrote: post #2

Relevant 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…

Isn’t that bigger news than it sounds at first? Part of the problem of finding planet nine must be knowing where it currently is on its orbit. A few possible observations should help to narrow down the space in which to look for it by a lot (rather: would make it almost clear where it currently is). Maybe JWST could be of help with testing the hypothesis that these early infrared observations of a moving object were of planet nine - once it has finally and savely launched and begun its operations?

Re: A 1980s space telescope may have seen planet nine

#32

Post by guerrilla »

HenryKissinger wrote: post #8

If Planet 9 contains rare earth metals, mining and manufacturing facilities could be built there. This should help alleviate the chip shortage.

Rare Earth metals aren't actually that rare. We even have a lot of big mines that are closed right now because its not profitable enough yet and many other sites enrirely undeveloped.

Re: A 1980s space telescope may have seen planet nine

#35

Post by tick_tock_tick »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #34

The Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile is under construction and will image the entire sky every week using the largest digital camera ever built. Hopefully searches along the plane of the ecliptic won't be sabotaged by Starlink or other LEO satellites.

Large facilities were never threatened by Starlink as they easily compensate the issue was amateur's and very small facilities.

Re: A 1980s space telescope may have seen planet nine

#36

Post by Asraelite »

usefulcat wrote: post #21
lainga wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The designation was not a Roman numeral but Lowell's designation for "unknown". It would have been the 9th planet if discovered, at the time Lowell coined it, anyway

Pluto was still considered a planet in the eighties, so at that point an additional planet (if discovered) would have been the 10th planet.

Pluto was discovered in 1930. The term was coined decades before that.

Re: A 1980s space telescope may have seen planet nine

#37

Post by kjs3 »

smlacy wrote: post #12

Am I the only one who's mildly annoyed by the 9th planet being referred to as Planet X? Seems like "Planet Ix" (same pronunciation!) would have been a better name?

The theory was proposed and it was anointed 'Planet X' when Pluto was the 9th planet, with X as the Roman numeral for 10. Now it's a play on 'X' being something unknown. Nothing to get annoyed about.

Re: A 1980s space telescope may have seen planet nine

#38

Post by vikingerik »

ithinkso wrote: post #30
vikingerik wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It very well could. Defining a planet as major or dwarf goes by its ability or inability to "clear the neighborhood", to control or remove objects of smaller mass in its orbital area. 225 AU is a long way, and the volume of space to clear goes up quadratically with distance; this object would have 50,000 times more space to clear than does Earth. The orbital period also goes up with distance [edit, reply is right tha…

It's on a plane. Circumference goes up lineary

It's undefined whether "clearing the neighborhood" involves the spheroid at that distance or just the plane. It hasn't come up, since all eight known major planets do satisfy the three-dimensional criterion. We'd probably revise or clarify the definition if we discovered an object that cleared its plane but not its volume.

Re: A 1980s space telescope may have seen planet nine

#40

Post by kjs3 »

HenryKissinger wrote: post #8

If Planet 9 contains rare earth metals, mining and manufacturing facilities could be built there. This should help alleviate the chip shortage.

Or we could, you know, build mining and manufacturing facilities on a planet that's, say a couple of AU away, instead of a couple of hundred AU. There's reasons we've done neither.
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