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Caltech Astronomers Say a Ninth Planet Lurks Beyond Pluto (sciencemag.org)
sciencehabit writes: The solar system may have a new ninth planet. Today, two scientists announced evidence that a body nearly the size of Neptune — but as yet unseen — orbits the sun every 15,000 years. During the solar system's infancy 4.5 billion years ago, they say, the giant planet was knocked out of the planet-forming region near the sun. Slowed down by gas, the planet settled into a distant elliptical orbit, where it still lurks today.
Here's a link to the full academic paper published in The Astronomical Journal.
Sorry, but many of us feel that the IAU's redefinition was a huge mistake. Including for example most of the New Horizons team. Heck, even when you press supporters of the concept of defining planets based on orbital characteristics rather than hydrostatic equilibrium you find that even most of them will admit that the definition as it stands is a mess and should be revisited. It's self-contradictory, vague, full of holes and creates more linguistic confusion than it solves.
It's worth adding that if we go by the IAU's definition, this thing - despite being 10 times bigger than the Earth - would almost certainly not be considered a planet, due to its distant elliptical orbit.
What the hells goin on in the engine room? Were there monkeys? Some terrifying space monkeys maybe got loose?
Please read TFA and consider it a good example of how to write something informative, accessible and entertaining, but most importantly not hosted on forbes.
I'm not sure why you inserted "not" before the predicates of the subordinate clauses in your sentences. You changed the structure of the analogy.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
It's worth adding that if we go by the IAU's definition, this thing - despite being 10 times bigger than the Earth - would almost certainly not be considered a planet, due to its distant elliptical orbit.
Assuming it exists, it orbits the sun, it is large enough to be round, and it's big enough it probably has "cleared its neighborhood". I think you're confused. Hydrostatic equilibrium is part of the definition. This must either be a planet or a dwarf planet. I can forgive the New Horizons team for being butthurt, but it's still a stupid argument.
Its perihelion is over 1100 AU. Sedna was discovered at 90AU. Wee bit of a difference there. Also, the degree of the solar system we've searched varies greatly in detection ability, some areas much better studied than others. It's estimated that we've only found about 1% of KBOs larger than 100km.
What the hells goin on in the engine room? Were there monkeys? Some terrifying space monkeys maybe got loose?
We prefer the term 'compact planet'.