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Our Early Solar System May Have Been Home To a Fifth Giant Planet

sciencehabit writes: A cluster of icy bodies in the same region as Pluto could be proof that our early solar system was home to a fifth giant planet, according to new research (abstract). That planet may have 'bumped' Neptune during its migration away from the sun 4 billion years ago, causing the ice giant to jump into its current orbit and scattering a cluster of its satellites into the Kuiper belt in the outer solar system.

60 comments

  1. Vindication! by DoktorMidnight · · Score: 5, Funny

    Zecharia Sitchin was right along!

    1. Re:Vindication! by Ghostworks · · Score: 0

      If we're naming a lost, Jupiter-sized planet on the edge of the solar system, I'm pulling for "Yuggoth" before "Nibiru".

  2. OUR solar system? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Maybe YOUR solar, system, you earthlings.

    1. Re:OUR solar system? by Coren22 · · Score: 1

      Kirk?

      --
      APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    2. Re:OUR solar system? by DrVxD · · Score: 1

      What makes you think it belongs to them?

      --
      Not everything that can be measured matters; Not everything that matters can be measured.
  3. Yep by binarylarry · · Score: 1

    Nibiru

    --
    Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
  4. Bad car analogy by PPH · · Score: 2

    I hope it left a note on Neptune's windshield.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
    1. Re:Bad car analogy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It was Eden and God got Angry and demolished it when he evicted Adam and Eve. Dunno why he didnt just send them an Angry email and tripple the rent like every one else does.

  5. Earth Not a Globe by Thing+1 · · Score: 1

    See http://www.sacred-texts.com/ea... Thus, the images that we see in the night sky are most likely on the firmament. We can never get there, just as "A11 work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" (A11 being short for Apollo 11, that is).

    --
    I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
    1. Re:Earth Not a Globe by raind · · Score: 1

      I knew we would sail off the end, just like they said.

      --
      Get up!
    2. Re:Earth Not a Globe by Mal-2 · · Score: 1

      I knew we would sail off the end, just like they said.

      That was the only thing that saved the world from being overrun by the Crimson Permanent Assurance.

      --
      How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
    3. Re: Earth Not a Globe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://www.timecube.com

  6. Yay science reporting... by H0p313ss · · Score: 2

    It would be real nice if reporters could tell the difference between "suggests" and "proof"

    --
    XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
    1. Re:Yay science reporting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is all bullshit anyway, since the Universe was created 4000 years ago.

    2. Re:Yay science reporting... by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 1

      I was thinking the same thing. Words like "proof" are almost always out of place when talking about new hypotheses. It's a good theory, but call the data what it is: evidence that supports the theory.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    3. Re:Yay science reporting... by DerekLyons · · Score: 1

      Why should reporters be held to a higher standard than the average Slashdotter?

    4. Re:Yay science reporting... by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 1

      That's a lie It was created 14ms ago and will be gone just as soon.

    5. Re:Yay science reporting... by captainpanic · · Score: 1

      It would be real nice if reporters could tell the difference between "suggests" and "proof"

      The heading should read: "Astronomers have found a set of parameters that could describe our current solar system (as could many others)".

    6. Re: Yay science reporting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That a lie and was created 3999 years ago

    7. Re:Yay science reporting... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Trolls trolling YEC's are nauseating. Don't you have anything better to do??? The world won't be any better with one more asshole trolling the net.

    8. Re:Yay science reporting... by ultranova · · Score: 1

      It would be real nice if reporters could tell the difference between "suggests" and "proof"

      There is no proof in the real world. Only very thinly veiled suggestions.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

  7. It makes you wonder what's out there. by Rei · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Because things have been messing with bodies way far away from the sun. Take Sedna, for example. It's perihelion is 76 AU (Neptune's is about 31 AU from the sun, much to far to have an significant effect on Sedna). Sedna's apohelion is 936 AU. Very, very elliptical, and off-axis too - it clearly didn't form in this orbit from the sun's accretion disk, something has seriously messed with its orbit. But that couldn't have been something *close* to the sun, because then Sedna's orbit would have to come back close to it, aka, into the inner solar system. And Sedna is no little rock, it's 1000 kilometers in diameter - bigger than Ceres. For something to have thrown it into such an extreme orbit it had to be quite large, and not anywhere near where the large planets of our solar system are.

    So the question is.... what?

    It may seem an obvious assumption to think that if there were any more large planets in our solar system we'd have seen them - but it's actually not the case. By the data from WISE, we can rule out Jupiter-sized planets 26000 AU out, and Saturn-sized planets 10000 AU out. But there could still be multiple Earth-sized planets at only several hundred AU out - we really have no idea. It's just really hard to see things out there, the light they reflect from the sun is so weak.

    Another possibility is that stars have sometimes drifted by our stellar neighborhood close enough to play havoc with things. Potentially more interesting is the concept that far more common than stars roaming past our neighborhood, there could be roaming planets outnumbering star that occasionally pass through and disrupt or are even captured by our system.

    --
    I'll never forget the last thing grandma said to me before she died: "What are you doing in here with that knife?!?"
    1. Re:It makes you wonder what's out there. by Rei · · Score: 4, Interesting

      First of, "my theory"? No, I'm just repeating the current state of hypotheses on Sedna.

      No, no research to date has ever ruled out earth-sized bodies more than a couple hundred AU, or Mars-sized bodies even closer. WISE ruled out Jupiter and Saturn-sized bodies for a good distance, but simply did not have the resolving power to find or rule out smaller bodies.

      Every possibility I described is a "3 body slingshot". The issue is that at least one body has to be far out in order to have the object being "slingshotted" to have both a high apohelion and perihelion.

      "research grant welfare criminal"? Okaaaaay........

      --
      I'll never forget the last thing grandma said to me before she died: "What are you doing in here with that knife?!?"
    2. Re:It makes you wonder what's out there. by zamboni1138 · · Score: 1

      So the question is.... what?

      This is obviously the result of a large celestial object passing through at near right angles to the plane of the star system. Probably a black hole.

    3. Re:It makes you wonder what's out there. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      ...The problem with your theory is that it's been proven more and more unlikely since we've looked, several times and not found nothing, rather we've found pretty much everything in our solar system and nothing matches your fantasy....

      Obligatory

    4. Re:It makes you wonder what's out there. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      But that couldn't have been something *close* to the sun, because then Sedna's orbit would have to come back close to it, aka, into the inner solar system

      There are three-body processes that will move an perihelion with time, in exchange for eccentricity. In a larger multi-body system, that will interact with orbital resonance to sometimes cause things to drift and settle elsewhere. Considering how much movement there is of gas-giants in some models from such processes, it is possible to move something like Sedna's orbit away from its last close interaction.

    5. Re:It makes you wonder what's out there. by Rei · · Score: 1

      Indeed, that is possible - but not with the gas giants where they are today, the strength of the interaction is too little. A gas giant migrating inward from an area where it had been strongly interacting with Sedna to its present day area where it no longer is would be a possibility.

      That said, possibilities to explain the orbit of one single body in the outer solar system aren't enough, there's a lot of data that a model has to account for - other Sedna-like bodies (there's another one discovered with curiously almost an identical apohelion to Sedna, can't recall the name of the top of my head), the Kuiper Cliff issue, etc. That's why studies like this are important, to see what possibilities can match up with the solar system as we know it.

      But really, we need a lot more data.

      --
      I'll never forget the last thing grandma said to me before she died: "What are you doing in here with that knife?!?"
    6. Re:It makes you wonder what's out there. by Rei · · Score: 1

      It should also be noted that there is a "known unknown" issue related to what Kuiper objects are out there undiscovered - we know that we've only discovered a tiny fraction of them, and the further out we go, the smaller the fraction that have been discovered. And we've seen what sort of size distribution they follow thusfar. I've seen published calculations that suggest that based on what we've discovered thusfar and the percentage of bodies we believe we've discovered thusfar, an Earth-sized far outer planet is not only a possibility, but actually to be expected.

      Of course, there's no way to know for sure if the size distribution trends that we've seen thusfar will actually hold to higher sizes. But the possibility of finding bodies larger than Eris and Pluto, even significantly larger, is very real. The Kuiper Belt (and whatever one wants to call Sedna's region) is not like the asteroid belt where we can be confident that we've already found all of the "big stuff".

      --
      I'll never forget the last thing grandma said to me before she died: "What are you doing in here with that knife?!?"
    7. Re:It makes you wonder what's out there. by Rei · · Score: 1

      ** Corr: nearly identical perihelion, not aphelion. And the other body is 2012 VP113.

      --
      I'll never forget the last thing grandma said to me before she died: "What are you doing in here with that knife?!?"
  8. Cool by viperidaenz · · Score: 1

    So the dwarf planets in the Kuiper belt could be old Neptune moons?

    1. Re:Cool by TWX · · Score: 1

      That was my take on it too, or that they're from this otherwise unknown gas giant that's now gone. Hell, so by this measure Pluto might have formed as a moon and become a rogue planet due to gravitational disruption...

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
  9. The Lords of Kobol were right! by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 2

    And our space faring civilization was founded from the remnants of that fifth planet.

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    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  10. Plausible. by Lumpy · · Score: 1

    But as plausible as the rogue planet theory as well. there is zero and I mean ZERO evidence. not even any mildly compelling observations. It's 100% wild speculation.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    1. Re: Plausible. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's OK, we're allowed to speculate. Pluto is no longer a planet, so everything can change now.

    2. Re: Plausible. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Triceratops never existed either...
      http://news.nationalpost.com/news/triceratops-never-actually-existed-scientists-say

      My worldview is crumbling.

    3. Re: Plausible. by H0p313ss · · Score: 1

      Nooooooooooo....

      Why didn't you tell me Ben?

      --
      XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
    4. Re: Plausible. by captain_nifty · · Score: 1

      It's okay, I heard they brought back the Brontosaurus.

      Although Google for some reason still brings up an information panel about Apatosaurus if you search for Brontosaurus.

  11. Nemesis? by Rinikusu · · Score: 1

    Isn't this what the Nemesis folks have been talking about?

    --
    If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
  12. Titius–Bode by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If this hypothesis is true, it could sort of revive the legitimacy of the Titius–Bode law by rationalizing Neptune's deviation.

  13. Missing planet? by Tablizer · · Score: 1

    TFA: "No one knows what became of the missing planet..."

    Maybe it's up Uranus.

  14. The asteroid belt... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 1

    A planet might have existed where the asteroid belt is between Mars and Jupiter. James P. Hogan did a series of novels of a planetary war that broke up the planet and the survivors colonized Earth. Nothing worse than being stuck between the king of gods and the god of war.

    1. Re:The asteroid belt... by Richard_at_work · · Score: 1

      You are referring to the Giants Star series of books, which are excellent.

    2. Re:The asteroid belt... by H0p313ss · · Score: 1

      First volume is "Inherit the Stars"

      (The first book in the series stands by itself, the sequels are good, but not as good and not really needed for the core ideas.)

      --
      XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
  15. Some evidence actually... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Based on the fact that with the Kuiper Belt there's apparently a sudden drop off in the objects around 50 AU. In fact the drop off is so sudden some astronomers think that region was swept clear by a large gravitating body. Possibly a Planet X.

    Also there are anomalies with the orbit of the minor planet Sedna indicating that its orbit has been elongated by a unseen object beyond its orbit.

    1. Re:Some evidence actually... by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 1

      Possibly a Planet X

      Wouldn't that be "Planet IX", with Pluto's demotion and all? ;-)

    2. Re:Some evidence actually... by TWX · · Score: 1

      no, "X" for variable, not "X" for Roman Numeral ten.

      Yes, I know it was in jest.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    3. Re:Some evidence actually... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Possibly a Planet X

      It's a hypothetical "Planet IX", thanks to the IAU.

  16. Wish i was a scentist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I could write up these fun theorys that has no point and can't be disproves.

    Must be some type of people who like these stories if there is new stories like this all the time.

  17. Re:Chaussures Nike Air Max Pas Cher 2015 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    WTF
    The result of this spam generator is actually kinda funny.

  18. how ejected? by anwyn · · Score: 2

    How much energy is required to eject a Jupiter sized planet from the solar system? Where did this energy come from?

    1. Re:how ejected? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      To eject a planet you need to double the energy that it already has in its orbital speed. The energy comes from the orbital speed and/or gravitational potential energy of another planet.

    2. Re:how ejected? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Two planets that pass too close to each other will disturb each others orbits, for example sending one outwards and the other inwards.

      When a spacecraft does this, it is called a slingshot maneuver or gravity assist, but due to the size differences, the spacecraft gets a huge change, and the planet gets a microscopic one.

    3. Re:how ejected? by anwyn · · Score: 1

      So to get this old Jupiter sized planet ejected, you had to steal most of the orbital energy of 2 or 3 other Jupiter sized planets. Where are those planets now?

    4. Re:how ejected? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      No, to double x you need to add x, so you need to steal the orbital energy of exactly 1 other Jupiter-sized planet. BTW it's improper to start with a hypothetical question ("Jupiter sized planet"), and finish with a question about reality ("where are those planets now?"). The story only claims a fifth giant planet. To eject a Uranus-sized planet you only need to steal 1/22 of the orbital energy of a Jupiter-sized planet.

    5. Re:how ejected? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Maybe a planet or two fell into the sun. Mighty big, the sun is. Deep too. Drop something in there, you won't see it again.

  19. Giant Dwarf Planet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Should that be, "Our Early Solar System May Have Been Home To a Fifth Giant Dwarf Planet", as it doesn't sound like it cleared its zone...