I think “15 times further from the Sun than Pluto” is more meaningful for most readers than “700 times further from the Sun than Earth.” If it exists, it’s way way way out there.
Evidence of controversial Planet 9 uncovered in sky surveys taken 23 years apart
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Re: Evidence of controversial Planet 9 uncovered in sky surveys taken 23 years apart
#12we already have a 9'th planet, but due to the greatest pedantic campain of all time, pluto got demoted. Though given the current situation, ha!, that could change.....perhaps the naming commity will get noticed, and be offered a chance to do a deal, and Make Pluto A Planet Again,(MPAPA)
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Re: Evidence of controversial Planet 9 uncovered in sky surveys taken 23 years apart
#13we already have a 9'th planet, but due to the greatest pedantic campain of all time, pluto got demoted. Though given the current situation, ha!, that could change.....perhaps the naming commity will get noticed, and be offered a chance to do a deal, and Make Pluto A Planet Again,(MPAPA)
The same happened to Ceres first. To be fair, Make Ceres A Planet Again!
If planets are required to clear their orbits, what was Jupiter called while the solar system was forming? A dwarf planet? A proto planet? The entire time?
Was earth not a planet shortly before and after collision with Theia?
The naming pedantry seems ridiculous given that we have such a small sample size.
Re: Evidence of controversial Planet 9 uncovered in sky surveys taken 23 years apart
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
The same happened to Ceres first. To be fair, Make Ceres A Planet Again!
Ya, I know but Ceres is going to get pushed into an intersection with Mars to generate an atmosphere and a hydrological cycle .......testing on fusion rocket drives is ongoing https://newatlas.com/space/pulsar-fusion-rocket-design-slash...
I mean, if you’re pushing ceres around, teller and ulam already designed the ideal fusion rocket
Re: Evidence of controversial Planet 9 uncovered in sky surveys taken 23 years apart
#15This cannot be evidence of Planet 9 (the Batygin and Brown hypothesis)—it's outright incompatible with it.
https://bsky.app/profile/plutokiller.com/post/3lnqm2ymbd22r
If those two spots are the same object, that object is on a high-inclination orbit; but the pattern the Planet 9 hypothesis explains is only compatible with a low-inclination object.
Re: Evidence of controversial Planet 9 uncovered in sky surveys taken 23 years apart
#16I find one theory regarding Planet 9 especially interesting, and that is that it could be a primordial black hole with a Schwarzschild radius on the order of just a few centimeters. So basically, just a golf ball-sized black hole. This would explain why we can see the gravitational effects on the other objects as described in many papers, and it would also explain at the same time why we have no direct observation of…
I really hope this is true, because it would mean there is a black hole close enough it could be examined and studied. This might allow us to test physics ideas that can’t be tested any other way, and maybe even to “finish” physics. It could also allow gravity and Oberth effect acceleration of small probes to meaningful fractions of the speed of light for interstellar flyby missions. Imagine the Oberth effect boost f…
I really hope it isn't true because if there's one out there, there will be others, and I'd rather not meet one in person.
We don't have enough data to see whether there are unexpected instabilities in detected planetary systems. But it would be an interesting project to look for those.
Re: Evidence of controversial Planet 9 uncovered in sky surveys taken 23 years apart
#17we already have a 9'th planet, but due to the greatest pedantic campain of all time, pluto got demoted. Though given the current situation, ha!, that could change.....perhaps the naming commity will get noticed, and be offered a chance to do a deal, and Make Pluto A Planet Again,(MPAPA)
The definition is pretty arbitrary. It's more interesting, what can we learn by studying that object. Even the trivia, like tidal locking, it was one of my 10000 moments (https://xkcd.com/1053/).
Re: Evidence of controversial Planet 9 uncovered in sky surveys taken 23 years apart
#18we already have a 9'th planet, but due to the greatest pedantic campain of all time, pluto got demoted. Though given the current situation, ha!, that could change.....perhaps the naming commity will get noticed, and be offered a chance to do a deal, and Make Pluto A Planet Again,(MPAPA)
If you add Pluto, you must add also Eris and a few more, like 5 or more, and perhaps also Ceres.
Here is a nice graphic that excludes Ceres https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_planet#Population_of_d...
Re: Evidence of controversial Planet 9 uncovered in sky surveys taken 23 years apart
#19I find one theory regarding Planet 9 especially interesting, and that is that it could be a primordial black hole with a Schwarzschild radius on the order of just a few centimeters. So basically, just a golf ball-sized black hole. This would explain why we can see the gravitational effects on the other objects as described in many papers, and it would also explain at the same time why we have no direct observation of…
FWIW, the object in the linked article is visible, so while that's an interesting theory it's actually ruled out if this thing turns out to be a planet. The black hole would need to be Planet 10 I guess.
Re: Evidence of controversial Planet 9 uncovered in sky surveys taken 23 years apart
#20I find one theory regarding Planet 9 especially interesting, and that is that it could be a primordial black hole with a Schwarzschild radius on the order of just a few centimeters. So basically, just a golf ball-sized black hole. This would explain why we can see the gravitational effects on the other objects as described in many papers, and it would also explain at the same time why we have no direct observation of…
I really hope this is true, because it would mean there is a black hole close enough it could be examined and studied. This might allow us to test physics ideas that can’t be tested any other way, and maybe even to “finish” physics. It could also allow gravity and Oberth effect acceleration of small probes to meaningful fractions of the speed of light for interstellar flyby missions. Imagine the Oberth effect boost f…
Honestly, if there is a golf ball–sized black hole out there chilling in the outer solar system, I'm all in.
Let’s fire up a replica of TARS, load up ChatGPT inside (TARS-GPT, patent pending), and yeet it straight toward the Schwarzschild golf ball. It’ll narrate live.
Imagine the livestream:
“Approaching event horizon. Spaghettification at 3%. Mood: stretchy.”
“Entering gravitational lensing zone… wow, even my tokens are redshifting.”
Bonus: With the right timing and Oberth maneuver, TARS-GPT might sling itself into Alpha Centauri before we finish arguing whether Pluto’s a planet again.
Worst case: we lose a robot. Best case: we unlock quantum gravity and get a podcast from inside a black hole.
I'd call that a win.