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Theoretical Evidence For a Ninth Planet Beyond Pluto May Be Premature (forbes.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Earlier today, the team of Pluto-killer Mike Brown and Konstantin Batygin announced that they had found evidence of a ninth planet in our Solar System beyond the orbit of Pluto, larger and more massive than even Earth. However, a closer inspection of the work shows that they predict a few things that haven't been observed, including a population of Kuiper belt objects with large inclinations and retrograde orbits, long-period Kuiper belt objects with opposite ecliptic latitudes and longitudes, and infrared data showing the emission from such an outer world. There are many good reasons to be skeptical, and not conclude that there's a ninth planet without more (and better) evidence.
Of course there are good reasons to be skeptical. It's just the way to be. Nothing to do with this article.
Honk, dammit.
Hold on now.... Are you telling me mathematical calculations and theories that do not line up with what we observe doesn't count as evidence? I'm shocked. SHOCKED
They just needed to cash in on the social media clickety-click to fund further research!
Oh well. Article will go unread.
I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem
I'm Skeptical that it's ever going to be worth following a Forbes link.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Ethan Siegel writes:
T, FTFA.
I've learned to be so convinced due to the high quality journalism selected for dotslash that i take everything i read here at face value, shocked i am to find that the recent findings of a 9th planet may be "premature"
Starkiller Base.
There is already a ninth planet. Pluto
Nuff said.
What would "theoretical evidence" actually be. Evidence which is not like real evidence because it is theoretical. Evidence for a particular theory? That seems plausible but if so, it should be stated as "theory evidence".
Every time some scientist comes out with even the most untested hypothesis, the media starts touting it as some great new discovery. The headlines were "New Planet Found!" when there should have been no headlines at all (not until it can be verified by many other astronomers).
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Especially when your running a hackneyed pop-sci blog on a malware distribution platform
or in other words, fuck off Ethan, this ones not for you.
I didn't read TFA. I wonder if this is what was first discovered in the 1980's then later thought to be something else which sparked conspiracy theories.
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost_historical/doc/147465164.html?FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:AI&type=historic&date=Dec%2030,%201983&author=By%20Thomas%20O%27Toole%20Washington%20Post%20Staff%20Writer&pub=The%20Washington%20Post%20%20%281974-Current%20file%29&edition=&startpage=A1&desc=Mystery%20Heavenly%20Body%20Discovered
This post, and the post yesterday covering the Caltech announcement, are great examples of what's wrong with science reporting these days. The story yesterday should have been titled "Caltech Researchers Find Evidence That Might Indicate A Ninth Planet"; it isn't proven, and while the researchers like their model, even they don't claim it's a done deal. However it makes better headlines to make it seem more certain, so yesterday's slashdot headline actually said "Caltech Astronomers Say a Ninth Planet Lurks Beyond Pluto".
Of course that idiocy leads to today's ridiculous headline. It's a fucking theory. It hasn't been proven. Of course it is fucking premature to talk about it like it's established fact, which dumb-ass journos did, not actual scientists. The evidence isn't fucking premature; the evidence is what it is - a model, a theory, observations. The paper is published, anyone is free to look at the theory, examine the predictions made, and show where it stands up or falls down; that's the scientific process, you fucking morons.
The 'blogger' complains that the authors predict things that have not yet been observed, but that is exactly the point. A proposal that only explained things that are known is awfully convenient and cannot be confirmed or disproven by new observations.
What they did was perform a bunch of simulations and found that this combination of six orbits occurred with that frequency by chance. Does that mean "the probability of that happening are 0.007 percent"? I don't think that's true. The simulation uses "that happening" in the sense of "given six randomly chosen orbits, what is the probability of 'that happening'", but the question they are attempting to answer is "given the large, biased sample of orbits we have in our catalog, what is the probability of 'that happening' in a subset of them". The latter probability is much higher than the former, but not knowable with any precision. By analogy, the probability of rolling snake eyes is 1:36. But the probability of seeing snake eyes during an evening of playing dice is close to one. The simulations Brown performed are reasonable and interesting. His interpretation of the probabilities, however, is sloppy.
Ethan's a pretty good guy and friends of friends of mine. I have been following their circles has been entertaining over the years. Every one of them has their points and almost all of them should be taken into consideration when "finding" a new planet.
There is a large community of astrophysicists who want Pluto reclassified as a planet. Mike Brown being the Pluto killer, finding a new planet only adds to the frustration.
Yet we know there to be a difference between sensational findings and actual findings.
Two years ago someone claimed they found a large object in the Kuiper Belt. Mike Brown tried to discredit them and failed. As more eyes start to look at where this gravametric distortion exists, the scientific community will validate the existence of the object.
Meanwhile, I am going to watch this conversation between geniuses try and not devolve into name calling.
Place something witty here
There are many good reasons to be skeptical, and not conclude that there's a ninth planet without more (and better) evidence.
The Cal Tech article quoted Mike Brown as saying something to the effect of 'We released our findings early because our model made some interesting predictions, some of which have already been proved true. We want the rest of the astronomy community to have a chance verify/disprove the other predictions."
It's a more collaborative version of science than we're accustomed to; but it is certainly more interesting to say "Hey, I have this awesome idea that could be true. But it would take a couple of my lifetimes to finish the research. Who wants to help me find the 9th, er, 24th planet?"
Honestly, I think this is way more interesting than the major media outlets are making it out to be.
It looks like Ethan "Douche Canoe" Siegel is submitting his spam as anonymous now since the general Slashdot readership has wised up and started avoiding clicking through anything with handle attached to it.
No surprise at all.
As i understood it, the primary reason for classifying Pluto as a "dwarf planet" was size. If there were 2000 similar sized bodies in the Kuiper Belt, then they felt obligated to say "there are 2009 planets in the solar system". Of course this was decision was made BEFORE New Horizons, so if Pluto was just another smallish hunk of ice and rock then I guess it makes some sense (still think it was silly). Now, we know that Pluto is a hell of a lot more than that, and is a more active planet than expected. It's time to bring it back as #9 and maybe when we get to the Kuiper Belt to actually get a look, we can rethink the terminology...
It's just a large frozen Mass relay. Or better yet maybe a sleeping reaper!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
"Theoretical evidence" ... it's just like being "sort of pregnant."
Pluto is the 10th planet if you include dwarf planets.
So, this is... Planet 9 from Outer Space?
How about you read the paper? I mean, seriously, your concerns are all addressed in the abstract. The probabibility stated is based on observational evidence, not modeling. The theory that there'sa 10th planet is supported by modeling a planet at perihelion, which accounts for much of the unlikelyhood of the observational data. In fact, TFA even clearly lays out the observational bias of the IR telescopes that are being used to look for KBOs.
Science does not make statements such as 'theoretical evidence may be premature'. Good scientist make statements such as:
"great awesome knowledgeable scientists scientifically conclude there IS a planet outside the Kuiper belt, and that it has always been there and that scientist have always known about it."
The last statement is a scientific fact. Scientists know everything. They can predict man made global scientific climate Armageddon with a 122% certainty. We know that global scientific warming is a scientific fact because we have done a pew research study and scientifically determined that 9 out of 10 scientist know global warming to be a scientific fact.
This is what science is about bitches. Stop being all wishey washy when making your scientific assertions. Speak with confidence. Anyone who dares to confound the assertions of science is a scientific heretic and will be shot.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
As i understood it, the primary reason for classifying Pluto as a "dwarf planet" was size.
Actually no, the size criterion was whether it's big enough to be round. Pluto and Ceres, and a number of TNOs all qualify. However, Pluto is gravitationally dominated by Neptune, in a 3:2 orbital resonance. The rule is, if some other planet's gravity makes you its bitch, you don't get to be a planet.
For a more precise definition of what it means to be a planet, including several criteria for what "clearing the neighborhood" means, you can consult this arXiv paper[pdf]. Interestingly, it suggests that the size criterion may be superfluous; anything large enough to clear its orbit should be big enough to be round.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
It appears as though StartsWithABang is posting articles anonymously now. How quaint.
We still know it's you oh click-whoring leech.
What are you telling us for? Wouldn't it be better to tell Forbes?
I begin to wonder if this science guy for Forbes is a douche bag. Seriously read the Cal Tech article "Caltech Researchers Find Evidence of a Real Ninth Planet" http://www.caltech.edu/news/ca...
Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown even state: "Now we can go and find this planet..."
So yes the researches are actually skeptical of their own work, we don't need some douche bag trying to make themselves look important.
I refuse to turn off AdBlocker for Forbes.
Well. I would say that this is a typical example of Forbes being Forbes. There is nothing of value in the so-called article. Nothing new. Nothing interesting.
Why anyone visits Forbes is a mystery. I mean, even the so-called articles themselves provide nothing of value. On top of that we have their stupid handling of visitors using (or even not using, as it were) ad-blockers.
And don't get me started on their so-called advertising...
Forbes: Please cease to exist. The world will be better off without you.
No reason to be skeptical. There definitely IS a ninth planet. It's called Pluto.
This is the kind of tripe that's sinking /.
Yesterday, journos spin a "hey maybe there's something interesting here" announcement into an "OMG another planet" gush...
Today, we are supposed to click though to the dreadful Forbes site to find out...that more data is required....
Fuck me, who'd have thought it! Of course, the scientific method is so passé these days.
It reminds me of the tabloid that published a story (with picture) about the "amazing discovery of a WW2 bomber found on the Moon"
Did the ensuing ridicule and debunking faze them in the slightest? Nope.
They followed-up with "WW2 bomber on Moon disappears"...
Important news for nerds, ladies and gentlemen, get it while it's hot...
Looking at a scale depiction of our solar system and possible orbits, if true, it is only really true for very large definitions of "solar system". It apparently ranges from 400AU to 1100AU on a 15,000 year period. To be blunt, even at its closest, it's way fscking out there... It is interesting none the less I suppose.
The models are one thing. Even the temperature record is not necessarily critical to the theory. For AGW to be conclusively disproven, there would have to be at least one of the following discoveries: [a] a new way for large amounts of heat to be transferred to space, or [b] a feedback loop that cancels out the (strongly positive) H2O-CO2 forcing.
Both of these ideas have issues. The first one is almost too fanciful to even mention, but suffice to say we would expect to see this effect in extraterrestrial atmospheres as well. The second hypothetical has seen some investigation and was a favorite of anti-AGW researchers for a while, but so far all proposed mechanisms fall seriously short of negating the known positive feedbacks. It's not enough to say "the data sucks" or "the models suck", you need to have some sort of replacement hypothesis which explains why, all else being equal, an increase in atmospheric carbon does not lead to increased temperatures. We've eliminated a lot of false candidates over the last 100 years, and if there is some sort of force that would prevent a carbon catastrophe, we could sure use one now. It's pretty slim pickings at this point though.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
One thing that Siegel seems to have missed is the question about the origins of the posited Ninth Planet. How did it get to where the simulations suggest that it might be? It very likely did not form where it is now (if it exists), as there would not have been sufficient matter density at that distance from the Sun. In fact, the more recent models of the Solar System formation suggest that Uranus and Neptune formed closer in to the Sun than they are now, and they migrated outwards (and possibly switched positions) early in the history of the Solar System. I've seen two suggestions for the origin of this Ninth Planet, both of which seem to be mostly just hand-waving. One suggestion is that it was formed outside of the Solar System in the initial creche, and was subsequently captured by the Sun (hand-waving, imo). The other suggestion is that it was formed in the Solar System, along with the other planets, and somehow moved outwards to its present orbit, that perhaps it was the hypothetical fifth large planet that is speculated (by simulations) to have been ejected during the great planetary migration. If so, what mechanism caused it to remain in orbit around the Sun, and/or what raised its periapsis out to 400 AU (friction with gas clouds? Hand-waving imo).
This has all been mentioned in one article or another, but largely ignored here on slashdot.
Soo... "non-evidence evidence"?
sic transit gloria mundi
should be called Janus. good solid roman god, generally fits it.
I'm not going to turn off my adblocker for them, since the last time i did, they tried to serve me malware. I should just blacklist their domain.
http://i.cubeupload.com/T6cyLu.png