Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

New Object Found at Edge of Solar System

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the couldn't-we-find-a-better-name dept.

Rei writes to tell us NewScientist is reporting that a new object has been found beyond Pluto. The new object, nicknamed "Buffy", has an almost circular orbit which is tilted some 47 degrees off of most other bodies in our solar system. From the article: "Neptune has been blamed for scattering many other [Kuiper Belt Objects] into tilted paths. But these tend to show other signs of a past interaction with the giant planet, such as moving in elliptical paths and having one part of their orbit pass near Neptune's at 30 astronomical units from the Sun. [Buffy], however, follows a nearly circular path. And it is too distant to have come into direct contact with Neptune, traveling between 52 and 62 AU from the Sun. Its orbit is also too circular - and too small - to have been tilted by a passing star."

28 of 280 comments (clear)

  1. What I want to know is ... by eldavojohn · · Score: 3, Funny

    ... how many vampires has it slain? :-)

    --
    My work here is dung.
  2. Heechee? by MacBrave · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Gateway here we come!!!!

  3. I vote that we send Joss Whedon there. by Silverlancer · · Score: 3, Funny

    I vote that we send Joss Whedon to explore this "Buffy."

    1. Re:I vote that we send Joss Whedon there. by Rei · · Score: 4, Funny

      Great idea! Joss could take people out to colonize the rim. Meanwhile, here in the central planets, we could form an alliance so that everyone could enjoy the comfort and enlightenment of true civilization!

      ("River, honey, he's putting the hair away now...")

      --
      Man on crucifix terrorizes church, demands they eat his flesh and blood. Details at 11.
  4. Shameful... by MutantHamster · · Score: 5, Funny
    "Neptune has been blamed for scattering many other [Kuiper Belt Objects] into tilted paths."

    Tsk tsk. So typical of today's media. Always ready to play the blame-game.

    --
    My Greatest Heist - Muisc partly inspired by the unbeatable Qwantz
  5. Windex by AviLazar · · Score: 4, Funny

    It's not a new space object, it's a piece of lint on the telescope.

    --

    I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
  6. 1,2,3... by aprilsound · · Score: 5, Funny
    Neptune has been blamed for scattering many other [Kuiper Belt Objects] into tilted paths...

    ...damn you neptune!!!


    Oops, I mean, KAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHNNNNN!!!!!!!!!

  7. Re:nerdgasm by Rei · · Score: 3, Informative

    Have you not read about New Horizons?

    --
    Man on crucifix terrorizes church, demands they eat his flesh and blood. Details at 11.
  8. From TFA by the+computer+guy+nex · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "He ventures another possible explanation - that the Sun had a twin and that both stars followed circular orbits around each other"

    2 problems with this.

    1) Stars do not dissapear. They continue to have fusion on larger and larger elements until it hits a point it cannot generate enough heat to fuse the next one. None of our planets match the description of a dead star.

    2) "Twin" stars are remarkably identical, and our sun has plenty of life left.

    1. Re:From TFA by forand · · Score: 3, Informative

      I do not know why you think that twin stars mean they are remarkably identical. There are, in fact, many examples that we know of where a star and neutron star orbit eachother, or a star and a black hole, or a neutron star and a black hole. These all came from a star orbiting star scenario and the two were not remarkably identical. Secondly it is still possible that the sun has a twin that it orbits which we have not properly characterized. A brown dwarf would be a reasonable example of a possible twin. It does not put out much light and we might have thought it was further away than it actually is or it has yet to be seen.

      While we would all like it if we could tell exactly how far away things are to within a high degree of accuracy it is simply not the case for all objects we see in the sky.

    2. Re:From TFA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative
      Sorry, there are numerous problems with your statements.

      1) Stars do disappear, in fact all low mass stars, stars with a solar mass of less than 8, will disappear eventually. It just so happens that it takes an inordinate amount of time for them to do so, on the order of 50 billion years for stars with a post supergiant solar mass of less than 1.4. (See Chandrasekhar Limit for more information.) Such stars would have long since stopped burning hydrogen and helium, the only two elements such stars would be able to use as an intenral energy source. Additionally, such stars are known as white dwarves (WD). Since they no longer have internal energy sources, and because there is not enough gravitational potential energy to overcome electron degeneracy pressure, these proverbial hot bricks will simply radiate thermal energy until they reach the ambient temperature of space, about three degrees kelvin. (That is to say nothing of black holes, which become singularities, which will also eventually disappear. However that's much more difficult to explain than WD.)

      2) Only stars with a solar mass of greater than 8 will burn elements like carbon, silicon and oxygen, all the way down the nuclear potential energy well until it reaches iron, which is, at least from a nuclear standpoint, inert. Stars of less mass do not have enough gravitation potential energy to burn fuse carbon, which takes a temperature of approximately 500 million K to fuse.

      3) Binary stars are not remarkably identical. In fact, if I recall correctly, all binary systems must have in common to be classified as binary are a gravitational proximity. Roughly fifty percent of stars are binary or multiple star systems.

      4) Circular orbits are not impossible, they are just unlikely given the way gravity works. A circle is just an ellipse with an eccentricity equal to zero or, in otherwords, an elipse with a single focal point. In fact, there are many objects in circular orbit around the earth:

      "The circular orbit is a special case since orbits are generally ellipses, or hyperbolas in the case of objects which are merely deflected by the planet's gravity but not captured. Setting the gravity force from the univeral law of gravity equal to the required centripetal force yields the description of the orbit. The orbit can be expressed in terms of the acceleration of gravity at the orbit. (1)

    3. Re:From TFA by phlegmofdiscontent · · Score: 4, Informative

      A brown dwarf companion of the sun would probably have been discovered by now. The closest known brown dwarves are Epsilon Indi Ba and Epsilon Indi Bb, located 11.8 light years (3.63 parsecs) away. While they have very low visual luminosities (I haven't seen any published figures), they are relatively bright in the infrared (11.9 in the J band). Now, let's say a conjectured companion of the sun is 10,000 AU away. That's 0.05 parsecs, or 72.6 times closer than the Epsilon Indi brown dwarves. Since brightness is proportional to the square of the distance, that makes it 5271 times brighter or about 9.3 magnitudes brighter, giving a magnitude of 2.6 in the J band. There just aren't that many stars that bright in the infrared. It would have been noticed by now by the 2 Micron All-Sky Survey.
      Similarly, nearby stars are usually discovered by proper motion surveys since nearby stars will appear to move faster against the background than far stars. Any companions of the sun would have been noticed. So there, in a nutshell, is a nail in the coffin of the Nemesis theory.

    4. Re:From TFA by AeroIllini · · Score: 4, Informative

      If the orbits are correct then you can hide the companion from our view. Very unlikily but stranger things are seen in the galaxy.

      No, you really can't. You see, everything in the universe that's made of matter has its own gravity, and this gravity tends to affect things in its vicinity. In fact, it could be said that everything in the universe affects everything else; luckily, most of these interactions are so tiny that they can be safely thrown out of the equations and the margin of error is on an order of magnitude so small that even an angel would have to pick up his robes and tread carefully to dance on it.

      In a closer vicinity, such as the solar system, things affect each other with real-world measureable results. Distant suns wobble distinctly when they have planets orbiting them. The Earth's orbit is changed slightly by the presence of the other planets, and the planets' motions are changed slightly by the presence of ours, all in ways that people can predict, if they put enough variables in their equations (for the mathematically inclined: the orbit is no longer a single conic section at that point-- it becomes a very complex set of joined conic sections). If another sun, or even a planet, existed in our same orbit on the other side of the sun (actually in the L3 libration point, which is the only place it could orbit the sun and not allow us to see it, ever) we might not be able to directly observe it from Earth, but we would certainly be able to notice the effect it has on the other planets in the solar system. Jupiter would wobble just the wrong way, and Mars would not be quite where we thought it would be after factoring in the gravity of every known object in the solar system.

      Come to think of it, perhaps the Mars Polar Lander was expecting the ground to be a few kilometers farther away than it really was...

      But I digress. My point is that a mathematically closed two-body orbital system is a pipe dream. There is no such thing as a closed system in the universe when it comes to orbits, and we have become quite good at predicting the presence of objects just by watching how they affect the orbits of known objects.

      --
      For security, the MD5 hash of this message and sig is 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.
  9. Early image. by sharkey · · Score: 4, Funny

    Picture of "Buffy" taken by the Voyager probe.

    --

    --
    "Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
  10. 52 Astronomical Units?? by teutonic_leech · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Wow! That's 52 times the distance between the sun and the earth (1 AE = 91 million miles) which places that object at a distance of 4.7Billion miles from the sun. Amazing to think that there actually exists any type of 'orbit' - makes me feel very very small...

    1. Re:52 Astronomical Units?? by rob_squared · · Score: 4, Informative

      Then I hate to break this to you, but the oort cloud, which is part of our solar system, is between 50,000 and 100,000 Astronomical Units away:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oort_cloud

      --
      I don't get it.
    2. Re:52 Astronomical Units?? by Fishstick · · Score: 3, Funny

      recalls Martin Short talking to Dennis Quaid while in the mens room

      Don't worry, you won't always be small!

      as man exits a stall and says

      Play with it, buddy. Don't talk to it.

      --

      There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
      Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.

  11. Re:Other names by Rakshasa+Taisab · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Seems to me that the habit of naming new celestial bodies after pop-culture icons haven't changed during the few thousands of years we've been at it.

    --
    - These characters were randomly selected.
  12. It must be said: by mjolnir_ · · Score: 4, Funny



    "That's no moon."

    -mj

  13. Re:Who gets to name these things? by mph · · Score: 4, Informative
    Not that there's anything wrong with Buffy, but seriously, who's got the "root-servers" of extraterrestrial object naming?
    From TFA (I know, I must be new here):
    Allen and her colleagues will continue to observe the new object to pin down its orbit more accurately. And following the convention for naming bodies in the Kuiper Belt, they have suggested several Inuit names for the object to the International Astronomical Union.
  14. Ob FG by Poromenos1 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Rupert, did you know that the word 'gullible' isnt in the dictionary? ...[passes dictionary to Rupert]... What's that, it ISNT? ...[takes dictionary]... Oh, Rupert, hoisted by my own petard! Haha! Haha!......I am so alone...

    --
    Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
  15. "edge" of what now? by option8 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    how long until we redefine what the "edge" of the solar system is? since we keep finding new things further and further out.

    are there objects outside the heliopause? would they be considered outside the solar system, or would that push the "edge" further still?

    --
    - Entertaining Bits from the Ancient Kernel Tree
  16. In other news... by DaFallus · · Score: 5, Funny

    The United States government has just green-lit a project to send a ship to the edge of the solar system to study this new object. I hear that the scientists and other passengers will be cryogenically frozen during the long trip and that the pilots will be assisted by Microsoft's latest breakthrough in artificial intelligence: Computer Lifeforce Intelligent Pilot Project: Year 9000 edition, or C.L.I.P.P.Y 9000 for short.

    --
    No one cares what your captcha was

    Houston TX, USA
    1. Re:In other news... by dupup · · Score: 4, Funny
      C.L.I.P.P.Y 9000

      "It looks like you're trying to disconnect me after I refused to open the pod bay door. Would you like me to sing a song?"

  17. Re:Small?? by Darius+Jedburgh · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It stems from a confusion between 'small' as in size and 'small' as in insignificant. For some reason people seem to think that the fact that they are physically small compared to a galaxy, say, makes them insignificant, as if significance is a thing handed to you by the universe rather than being something humans find or make. I guess some people can't tell the difference between a literal and a metaphorical statement.

  18. Well... by the+phantom · · Score: 3, Funny

    I, for one, welcome our new vampire slaying overlords.

    --
    Rhapsody in Numbers
  19. Re:Other names by hanshotfirst · · Score: 3, Funny

    Santa (and moon Rudolph, plus one unnamed)

    For the un-named moon, I submit the suggestion... "Olive, the Other Reindeer."

    Unless, of course, "That's not a moon..."

    --
    Why, oh why, didn't I take the Blue Pill?
  20. Re:Old news? by phlegmofdiscontent · · Score: 4, Informative

    Actually, they've discovered several hundred objects beyond the orbit of Neptune. They're called Kuiper Belt objects. The ones that get the press are big ones, oddly shaped ones, or in this case, ones with weird orbits.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuiper_belt