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Analysis Suggests Solar System Contains Massive Trans-Neptunian Objects
BarbaraHudson writes NBC News reports that at least two planets larger than Earth likely lurk far beyond Pluto, just waiting to be discovered, a new analysis of the orbits of "extreme trans-Neptunian objects" (ETNOs) suggests. The potential undiscovered worlds would be more massive than Earth and would lie about 200 AU or more from the sun — so far away that they'd be very difficult, if not impossible, to spot with current instruments. "The exact number is uncertain, given that the data that we have is limited, but our calculations suggest that there are at least two planets, and probably more, within the confines of our solar system," lead author Carlos de la Fuente Marcos, of the Complutense University of Madrid, said. (Here's the longer version at Space.com.)
Our ability to discern planetary positions has largely been based on our understanding of orbital dynamics and looking for protuberances in the motions of known, directly observed objects that were naked eye observable. This technique has been used since the 16th century and led to discoveries of all Planets, Planetoids, various Asteroids, Comets, and Plutoids ever since without the need of direct imaging; just some very cool math...
Thirty four characters live here.
I think Pluto got robbed.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
At that range, you have to wonder enough time has elapsed since the formation of the solar system for them to have "cleared the neighborhood" around their orbits.
I hope I'm alive long enough for somebody to build probes that are fast and powerful enough to reach and map these places.
The trouble with present technology, is that most rockets/spacecraft only have enough delta-V to take decades to get out there, and nowhere near enough to actually go into orbit when they get out there.
Hazarding a guess, I would say that that'll only happen when somebody gets around to building nuclear-powered engines. The big question is: who's got the money and balls to pull it off?
I think Jupiter makes sure any highly elliptical orbit coming near Jupiter's orbit would not last too many orbits before having it's orbit radically changed, like happens with comets sooner or later if they survive long enough otherwise.
This would explain why SPACE: 1999 had the runaway Moon passing a planet outside the solar system in every episode. For all these years, I thought British SF TV was just weak in the science department.
I wonder what they're going to call these new objects, because they'll probably find a reason not to call them planets just like they did for Pluto.
They're too big to be dwarf planets... Maybe elf planets?
Perhaps KP's, Kuiper Planets. Which could start a whole new Planetary naming system based on regional distance from a star instead of what we have now. Everything round + blah between the Star and it's local Kuiper Belt type region would be either an Inner Planet or Solar Planet, everything otherwise fitting that definition but within the Kuiper Belt would be a Kuiper Planet and anything further than that would be an Oort Planet.
That might even allow Pluto to be reclassified as a planet again, either a Solar Planet or Kuiper Planet. I really think this system, plus other basic details like roundness etc, could be a more useful system. It would also allow a way to keep the number of planets more manageable since we could mostly focus on the Inner/Solar Planet count for general public use without the number of them being too high to manage.
New Planet types based on Region/Distance from star:
Inner Planet or Solar Planet
Kuiper Planet
Oort Planet
btw: I made a post as anon under the same parent post before this, then thought I should log in and elaborate. The previous post was:
" They'll probably be called KP's. Kuiper Planets."
1) It's very difficult to get there - Voyager 1 and 2 are the only probes ever to get that far from the sun and still be functional, and they took decades to get there
2) If you hang around in the orbit of the planet, then you'll have the same orbital period as it. Effectively, you'd stay stationary relative to the planet, and as a result never spot it unless you got lucky and landed exactly where the planet was.
You recall correctly; Pluto hasn't even made it half a lap around the sun since we discovered it.
It was discovered in 1906, 108 years ago, and it's orbital period is 247.68 years.
"Total destruction the only solution" - Bob Marley
"Why choose the lesser of two evils? Vote Cthulhu for President 2016"
"Total destruction the only solution" - Bob Marley
You think in another 108 years you'll have mastered the difference between its and it's?
I wonder what the fastest possible chemically-propelled-rocket probe is? If the probe was made small and compact to do little more than take photos and spectrographic analysis, how fast could the bugger be made to travel using existing rocket tech?
While not chemically-propelled, Freeman Dyson calculated while working on the Orion project that one of those magnificent bastards could achieve 3.3% of the speed of light (0.03c, 10,000 km/s, or roughly 22 million kph - give or take a few hundred thousand mph - by firing a shaped-charge nuclear bomb behind it every three seconds for ten days straight.
At that speed, Alpha Centauri is just 133 years away, and these ETNOs are really not much farther than down the road to the chemist.
It's a shame that project never came to anything but a few chemical proof-of-concept scale tests.
"Total destruction the only solution" - Bob Marley
Everywhere is relative. There are an estimated 5 trillion habitable planets in the known universe. We've mostly explored one. On our closest neighbors, we've done roughly the equivalent of checking your back yard and saying "There are no whales". Well, unless you happen to have whales in your yard, then we'll say "... no elephants". :)
If there is/was life on other planets, it is very likely not to be in our solar system. Even if there was an species that achieved space travel, and spent millions of years settling on millions of planets, it's *still* not very likely they'd be found on one in our solar system.
Even if we found one, would we know what we're looking at? Since rock seems to be pretty abundant in the tiny speck of space that we've explored, a sand and rock covered hull of a spacecraft would be reasonable. That would help protect from micro-meteors and other hazards. If one crashed on a neighboring planet even 10,000 years ago, would just look like rock. Heck, if one crashed on Earth, it would still look like a rock.
Is this space craft remains, or a natural formation?
No, I don't believe it's a crashed spaceship. It's just a rock. But since we don't exactly do thorough core samples on every large rock on the planet (and under the surface), we wouldn't know if it was.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
> I wonder what the fastest possible chemically-propelled-rocket probe is?
Slower than a Nuclear-ion probe. Nuclear in this case means a small nuclear reactor, say in the 1 MW power range. Plasma thrusters have an exhaust velocity of ~ 50 km/s, and it is reasonable to reach 3x exhaust velocity, thus 150 km/s. The mass ratio (propellant to empty mass) would be 20:1 in that case. For any kind of chemical rocket to reach that velocity, it would need a mass ratio of 10 trillion, which is seriously impractical.
150 km/s = 31.6 AU/year, therefore missions to around 300 AU would be reasonable (10 year trip time). 1 MW reactor with radiators would mass ~ 20 tons. 300 AU probe would mass ~ 5 tons. Propellant load would be 25x20 = 500 tons. Propellant flow rate is .57 grams/sec or 49 kg/day. So thrust time is 28 years, which is a bit long. It would help if the reactor could be made lighter.
"We've mostly explored one"
Not even close to 'mostly'. The land areas often have areas very little understood, we can't find a crashed airliner in the ocean, we know very little of the crust though some discoveries of extremophiles underground hint at some weird biology and chemistry, and can't even get sol microbes into the lab without killling them. Before we try to understand other planets it might be a good idea to understand Earth first.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
But how does Nibiru get those mind-altering toxins to American air carriers so they can be spread through our pristine skies as chemtrails? At those distances, Paul Craig Roberts would probably still have to invoke a wormhole.
It would certainly explain why my appliances work without being connected.
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