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Theoretical Evidence For a Ninth Planet Beyond Pluto May Be Premature (forbes.com)

Posted by samzenpus on from the maybe-maybe-not dept.

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.

7 of 176 comments (clear)

  1. Skeptical by Skeptical1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Of course there are good reasons to be skeptical. It's just the way to be. Nothing to do with this article.

    1. Re: Skeptical by Sique · · Score: 3, Insightful
      And Linus Pauling, winner of the Nobel prize for Chemistry, believed high doses of Vitamine C would cure cancer. Excellence in one field of science does not translate in sound knowledge in another field of science, even if it is related.

      Burt Rutan can build successful space ships. That doesn't make him an authority in the field of weather prediction and climate modelling.

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      .sig: Sique *sigh*
  2. I'm Skeptical by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.'"
    1. Re:I'm Skeptical by Rob+Lister · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I do not get why so many articles here are sourced at Forbes when almost everyone here can't see them.

    2. Re:I'm Skeptical by squiggleslash · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Maybe it's to force people to turn off their ad-blockers, so that when they come back to Slashdot they'll see ads... if so, well played DICE, well played...

      That said, even when I turn off my ad blocker, I can't read Forbes, so I never bother trying any more anyway.

      --
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  3. No no no by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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.

  4. ridiculous by Ken+D · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.