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Discovery of 'Goblin' Solar System Object Bolsters the Case For Planet Nine (gizmodo.com)
Astronomers have discovered a dwarf planet, dubbed "the Goblin," in the outer reaches of the Solar System that never gets any closer to the Sun than 6 billion miles. Some experts say its orbital configuration points to the existence of Planet Nine, a hypothetical planet in our Solar System that is estimated to be about 10 times the mass of Earth. Gizmodo reports: The Goblin, or 2015 TG38 as it's more formally called, is what's known as an extreme trans-Neptunian object, or ETNO. As the moniker implies, these objects, of which there are potentially thousands, are located well beyond the orbit of Neptune. The researchers who discovered the object, a team led by Scott Sheppard from the Carnegie Institution for Science and Chadwick Trujillo from Northern Arizona University, estimate that the Goblin is around 185 miles (300 kilometers) in diameter. At this size, it could very well be sphere-like in shape. Its mean distance from the Sun is about 80 astronomical units (AU), where 1 AU is the average distance from the Earth to the Sun. That's 7.45 billion miles, or 12 billion kilometers.
The Goblin's extreme orbital path means it never comes close enough to impose gravitational influence on the Solar System's giant planets, like Neptune or Jupiter. And at the astounding distance of 2,300 AU, it gets slotted into an emerging astronomical category known as Inner Oort Cloud objects (IOCs), of which 2012 VP113 and Sedna are the only other two known members. [...] The discovery of 2015 TG38 is bolstering the case for Planet Nine -- a hypothetical planet, sometimes referred to as Planet X, that's allegedly several times larger than Earth and located hundreds of AU away. As noted in the new study, published today in The Astronomical Journal, the location of Goblin's perihelion is similar to what's observed with Sedna and 2012 VP113, along with other ETNOs. This is a clue to astronomers that something potentially big, i.e. a super-Earth, is pushing these objects into similar types of orbits.
The Goblin's extreme orbital path means it never comes close enough to impose gravitational influence on the Solar System's giant planets, like Neptune or Jupiter. And at the astounding distance of 2,300 AU, it gets slotted into an emerging astronomical category known as Inner Oort Cloud objects (IOCs), of which 2012 VP113 and Sedna are the only other two known members. [...] The discovery of 2015 TG38 is bolstering the case for Planet Nine -- a hypothetical planet, sometimes referred to as Planet X, that's allegedly several times larger than Earth and located hundreds of AU away. As noted in the new study, published today in The Astronomical Journal, the location of Goblin's perihelion is similar to what's observed with Sedna and 2012 VP113, along with other ETNOs. This is a clue to astronomers that something potentially big, i.e. a super-Earth, is pushing these objects into similar types of orbits.
The hypothetical new planet would be Planet Ten. Pluto is the ninth planet and it's widely accepted that the efforts to say otherwise were a complete farce.
My very erratic mother just served us goatse?
Works for me.
If you count everything as a planet, Pluto is not the ninth, there is a lot more. Wikipedia's list of minor plants has 523584 entries today.
Pluto isn't even the only thing once considered a planet that got "downgraded" to dwarf-plant. It happened to Ceres in the 1850s before. Ceres was discovered on the 1st of January 1801, far earlier than Pluto. Its orbit between those of Mars and Jupiter and it is far bigger than Goblin.
... *directly* orbiting a star. Moons aren't planets.
Assuming it does exist, then based on the IAU's current position on what constitutes a planet and where it's orbiting, the most likely current classification would seem to be either a Kuiper Belt Object or a Plutoid. Alternatively, they could go back to the drawing board again and revamp the classification system to try and make arbitrarily pigeon-holing lumps of rock and gas going around stars into types at least a little less confusing and contentious.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
To be able to so wildly disturb the orbits of the multiple ETNO's we have discovered so far, the suspected mystery planet is not going to be a minuscule speck like Pluto but a gas giant along the lines of Uranus or Neptune. Rest assured that should we discover something that big orbiting the Sun, it will be a designated a planet.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
Its mean distance from the Sun is about 80 astronomical units (AU)
and
at the astounding distance of 2,300 AU
?
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
The only importance of the distinction is to decide which names to teach at school, pretending learning random names is science.
I assumed Pluto was the closest one after Neptune. And I talked about belts.
Then it's planet 94732 or whatever.
Or does that overwhelm your mind or comfort zone already? ;)
Fascinating bit of research; kudos to the authors.
Just one bit of pedantry (sorry!). When the OP writes, "This is a clue to astronomers that something potentially big, i.e. a super-Earth, is pushing these objects into similar types of orbits.", the use of the term "super-Earth" prompted a non-technical friend of mine [who was reading the article over my shoulder] to ask, "So there's, like, an amazing Earth, way out in space, right on the edge of our solar system?"
Obviously I explained that in this context the phrase simply meant, "physically bigger than the Earth in size and/or mass" and that in reality, any planet orbiting beyond Pluto would be a barren world of rock and/or ice, to which the response was, "Well, why doesn't the article say that, then?"
Given the way that lots of content covered by slashdot gets picked up by the mainstream media, maybe we should try and avoid terms liable to confuse or be misunderstood by less technical readership?
At least in this case you can find out how it was meant after an unacceptable amount of backtracking anf detective work, to untangle this turd of a fucking summary.
When they stated 80 AU they also stated 300 km diameter of the body. When they stated 2300 AU they also stated "several times larger than Earth". Earth diameter is about 12740 km.
Are you really expecting BeauHD to EDIT?!?!!
Gotta wonder what planet you're on. ;-)
Just be glad TFS wasn't turned into some "Russia! Russia! Russia!" crap.
You're probably right on that, but there are still a lot of assumptions here - including that the thing even exists and is a single entity; it could turn out to be a collection of gravitationally bound objects in a common orbit similar to Pluto and Charon, for instance. In that case, even if the combined mass is similar to Uranus/Neptune and the individual mass of the larger objects is larger than (say) Earth, would that still a planet, singular, or even an ETNO? What about the individual larger masses - planets or ETNOs?
Personally, I don't really care whether Pluto is officially a planet or not; because it was when I was first learning about space that's still how I think of it, but on a practical level given the range of other objects we now know are out there it probably does make more sense to have it in some other category. Alternatively, if you're going to officially classify Pluto as a planet, then what about Eris, which has more mass but with a much greater orbital eccentricity? With a little luck, this new object will turn out to be something that doesn't fit the current classification schema, force the IAU back to the drawing board on definitions, and they'll then figure out a way to include Pluto as a planet again (based on mass and orbital inclination/circularity, perhaps?) to stop at least some of the bickering.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
How come everyone misspells "creamer" at this site? I don't get it.
Although a planet, by definition of the *word*, is every body orbiting a star!
By that definition, even your momma is a planet.
Come to think about it, she too is by some other definitions, but that's beside the point.
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
You could say that about most of biology
And now you are like unto God.
"is a lot" - correct
"are lots" - correct
"are a lot" - incorrect.
While I'm aware research is still in its early phase --- are they suggesting that, should Planet X exist, that Goblin is actually a Moon?
I heard Goblin described as "at the very small end of a dwarf-planet." Are they suggesting it is a planet that was knocked out of orbit by X? Or is it technically orbiting X making it a moon?
Or do we need a different definition --- rocks that float in space?!
OOhhh -- I see the movie now. Super Earth X. Magical planet of mysterious inhabitants. :-P
The sequel will be called "Return to Xs"
Here you go:
1. Mercury
2. Venus
3. Earth
4. Mars
5. Jupiter
6. Saturn
7. Uranus
8. Neptune
9. PLUTO
10. Planet X (X as is in the Roman numeral for 10).
Slashdot Valentines Beta Massacre: iT WORKED! The boycotts killed Beta!!
With a perihelion of 80, and an aphelion of 2300, Goblin is not a planet, its a comet.
It's not hard to avoid sounding like an inbred
...and yet somehow you managed to do it, even with so-called superior grammar. I also assume the dangling parenthesis is just dangling for a reason?
Your swarm of gravitationally bound objects is unstable, so no. In addition you'd need to devise a theory for how they came to be gravitationally bound that doesn't destroy current theories on solar system creation and works in simulations. Pluto/Charon (& Earth/Moon) for that matter have been shown to have been created by the collision of similarly sized objects with the two largest successor objects cleaning up and ejecting or absorbing all the rest.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
So you could say this is "Planet 9 from Outer Space"?
*rimshot* Thank you! I'll be here all week -- don't forget to tip your waitress!!
"is a lol" - chortle
"are lols" - chuckle
"are a lol" - incoherent.
lol'd that for you!
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
It's not hard to avoid sounding like an inbred (and no one's even suggesting that you need to learn the pronunciation of more challenging words, such as "height" or "sherbet").
Its not hard to avoid sounding like a mealy mouthed 50 yr old virgin by pointing out things politely and acknowledging that you knew exactly what he meant despite an extremely minor grammatical error.
Also, it's inbreed, not inbred when using it in the present tense. Inbred is the past tense. Had you not had a go at the OP I would have been happy to ignore this as I knew what you meant.
They're, there, their, ssss'OK; all Grammar nazi's are hates me. Any other grammatical or spelling errors, intentional or otherwise are there for your annoyance.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
This country is full of Nazis! Grammar Nazis that is! Are you sure, Bert? Yepper doodle, I'm sure!
Is it 80 AU away or 2,300 AU away?
I suggest that we call planet 9 "Pluto". There is another object called "Pluto" but since it isn't a planet, it should be no problem, right?
Multiple objects of similar mass in mutual orbit are very rare, Pluto-Charon being considerably the closest of the large bodies. The next closest in the size stakes is 79360 Sila-Nunamat 243 and 230km diameter, around a tenth of the diameter and so a bit less than a thousandth of the mass of Pluto-Charon.
The Brown-Batygin 2016 proposal has the unknown planet being around 8-10 times the mass of the Earth. That's around 5000 time the Pluto-Charon system's mass, and probably 800 to a thousand times the mass of the Kuiper Belt in total.
We have - it's the category of "Dwarf Planet", including Pluto-Charon, Ceres, Vesta, Make-make, Haumea and the like. Large enough to have self-rounded, but not large enough to have dynamic dominance of their orbital regions.
Pluto-Charon fails. It's a little over 4% of the mass of the next smallest planet, Mercury, which is half the mass of the next smallest planet, Mars.
Pluto-Charon fails. 17.2 degrees versus 7 degrees (Mercury, again).
You mean e, the eccentricity of their orbit? There you've got a slightly better case. {Body - eccentricity} pairs are Pluto - 0.244 ; Mercury - 0.205 ; Mars - 0.094 ; Saturn - 0.057 ; Jupiter - 0.049 ; Uranus - 0.046 ; Earth - 0.017 ; Neptune - 0.011 ; Venus - 0.007. Which marks Mercury as being decidedly unusual among the rest of the planets. Clearly, it has had a bit of a rough time, which is why it still has a percent or so chance of being ejected from the Solar System before the Sun goes red-giant and makes Mercury's future a bit academic.
The bickering is confined to non-astronomers, the New Horizons team (who launched a probe to a planet and flew by a dwarf planet) and a few others. Most simply don't care - they know what the properties of Pluto-Charon are and that's enough.
Having said that, I'd better amble off to Twitter and see how #TeamIce are doing in this year's #MinCup - a knock-out competition for geologists to name their favourite mineral. Where there has been much argument over whether or not ice is a mineral. (Hint : it is.)
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
While all true, the distinction is generally only in how to choose to word our definitions.
I'd say Pluto is closer in "sameness" to Mars than Mars is to Jupiter, yet both Mars and Jupiter have been classified as planets while Pluto has not.
I don't have strong feelings about it either way, and to me anyone with strong feelings I view with suspicion. Arguing the definition had nothing to do with science and everything to do with language. And in general it seems that the primary reason for declassifying Pluto was that if Pluto was a planet then we'd have "too many" planets.
I find it comical though that the primary theory for Earth's moon formation was that there was a second "planet" orbiting in the same vicinity as Earth 1.0, the two collided, and the combined mass of the two formed current Earth with the debris scattered into orbit forming the moon. That means that by the current definition, neither of those bodies were planets prior to them colliding, since until that point neither had cleared out their orbit.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Pluto is the ninth, and like everything else that revolves around thr sun, planet.
How about we say Pluto is the largest dwarf planet and fifth dwarf planet from the Sun ?
ordered by distance from Sun:
1. Ceres (945 km diameter, 2.9773 AU aphelion)
2. 120347 Salacia (approximately 850 km diameter, 46.548 AU aphelion)
3. 2002 MS4 (726 km diameter, 47.740 AU aphelion)
4. 90482 Orcus (920 km diameter, 48.069 AU aphelion)
5. Pluto (2380 km diameter, 49 AU aphelion)
6. Haumea (816 km diameter, 51.483 AU aphelion)
7. Makemake (715 km diameter, 52.840 AU aphelion)
8. Eris (1160 km diameter, 97.651 AU aphelion)
9. 2007 OR10 (1253 km diameter, 101.02 AU aphelion)
10. 90377 Sedna (approximately 1000 km diameter, 936 AU aphelion)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
(based on mass
Pluto-Charon fails.
Both are massive enough to have reached hydrostatic equilibrium, which is the threshold any definition that would be adopted requires.
and orbital inclination
Pluto-Charon fails.
Even the problematic IAU definition doesn't use it orbital inclination as a criterion. Nor should they - it has nothing to do with the inherent properties of the body in question.
If they made Pluto a planet again (planet #9), then Planet X would be Planet Ten. Or should that be iPlanet X?
return 0; }
I suggest we refer to Planet 9 by it's rightful name planet Nibiru.
After that we can stop all the foolish psuedoscience and get to the real task of understanding the role that the prophecy plays in Clinton's statement of Kavanaugh being banned on Alex Jones website.
Lord John Whorfin: Where are we going? The Red Lectroids: Planet Ten! Lord John Whorfin: When? The Red Lectroids: Real soon!
As far as I know, the definition of a planet is not only being in orbit around a star, but also being large enough to form a sphere and large enough to clear its orbit. A minor planet is one that fails that last criteria. So it's my understanding that Pluto still falls under the category of planets, but is properly further defined as a minor planet.
I've seen some layman debate about whether a given body's ability to hold an atmosphere is relevant, but I don't think it is. Whether a body has an atmosphere isn't just a product of a body's size, but also its composition and distance from the star it orbits. The Goblin planet mentioned in the article likely doesn't have any atmosphere at all because it would be too cold for even gaseous hydrogen. I suspect that the unknown planet X may be equally cold.
I need a wheelchair van for my son. Help me get the word out. https://www.gofundme.com/wheelchair-van-for-jj
Well, learning languages has always been hard for me. At school, for a while English always was my worst grade. That only changed when I had to take a second foreign language.
My grades finally improved when I was reading Unix Network Programming, Volume 2, Interprocess communications. It seems I learned English from that book. I still couldn't really speak it, but reading and writing finally was okayish.
Even today, I write a mixture of British and American English, there is a heavy German accent in my pronunciation and I have trouble understanding some spoken English (in particular the Dublin and Yorkshire accents).
The only languages I really feel comfortable with are German and C. But I noticed that my German no longer is a good as it once was. I guess I should go back to reading German books more often.
If I'd put in some effort, I should be able to get my French, Scheme and Verilog to a reasonable level. But I don't think I could progress much further than that.
Both are massive enough to have reached hydrostatic equilibrium, which is the threshold any definition that would be adopted requires.
Reread RockDoctor's post. You snipped the following: "but not large enough to have dynamic dominance of their orbital regions."
Pluto fails.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
I would think the massive diameter of 300 km is enough to make sure of that. What kind of gravitational influence would an object like that have, even if it were to come close?
Try asian languages.
Japanese is super easy.
Thai is reasonable easy, too. After you are beyond the hurdle of the script.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
It wasn't part of what I was responding to, nor is it particularly germane given that the post RockDoctor was responding to was predicated on IAU revisiting its definitions, thus throwing out the "has cleared its orbit" criterion. Which they should, given that that criterion has little to do with the intrinsic characteristics of the body itself and a lot to do with where it is. For example, Earth would not clear its orbit in the same orbit as Pluto. Go far enough out, and Neptune wouldn't clear its orbit. Further still, Jupiter wouldn't clear its orbit. And given what we know about the mass and distance of this potential Planet X, it's likely it won't clear its orbit.
Re: Planet X not clearing it's orbit disqualifying it:
Given that Brown-Batygin 2016 proposed planet is posited precisely because it has perturbed the orbits of ETNO's and Goblin is another addition to the list it looks like planet X _is_ clearing it's orbit, even if it may not have finished doing so. The IAU definition has some margin in it: Nobody is claiming that Earth should lose it's planetary status even though Rugyu & Earth cross orbits.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue