Hunt for Planet X back on
Discussion
Halb said:
I cant imagine what you see as risible?
ash73 said:
If a planet has to "gravitationally dominate their neighbourhood" that would mean for example, if another massive object such as a black hole or rogue planet traversed our solar system, the Earth would temporarily cease to be a planet while it was nearby. How can the definition of a planet be transient? His classification is nuts.
If a black hole happened to stroll through our solar system, whether Earth is still technically a planet or not is near the bottom of the list of things i give a f
k about!
Herschel wanted to give it a name that recognised its modern discovery - and to honour his patron, George III. He didn't quite want to call it "George". His suggested name was "Georgium Sidus" - which translates as "The Georgian Star".
Naturally, many objected to this, especially the French
I think referring to this possible new giant planet as "George" is quite a nice touch.
Naturally, many objected to this, especially the French
I think referring to this possible new giant planet as "George" is quite a nice touch.
skeeterm5 said:
I wonder to what extent this could be the culprit at the heart of the Muller suggestion of a "death star" being responsible for mass extinctions?
Interesting.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis_%28hypotheti...
Been reading a few books recently that reckon big impacts are quite regular.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas_impact...
Eric Mc said:
Exactly, we haven't systematically hunted for remote planets since the 1930s as far as I am aware. And we certainly haven't systematically been looking since the advent of automated computerised scanning techniques.
I reckon there may be quite a few genuine planets (as opposed to Dwarf Planets and KBOs) out there in the far outskirts of the Solar System - and many of them will be in highly eccentric and inclined orbits - which will make them that bit more difficult to find.
The Solar System is turning out to be a lot more complex and interesting than was thought even only 40 years ago.
There was the WISE survey, which they claim should have found any larger planets out that far.I reckon there may be quite a few genuine planets (as opposed to Dwarf Planets and KBOs) out there in the far outskirts of the Solar System - and many of them will be in highly eccentric and inclined orbits - which will make them that bit more difficult to find.
The Solar System is turning out to be a lot more complex and interesting than was thought even only 40 years ago.
Thanks.
I watched The Sky at Night listed above and one of the scientists featured mentioned WISE. He said that even though WISE did cover most of the sky, it's equipment was not sensitive enough to spot any [planets smaller than Saturn i.e. it could not have seen a Neptune or Uranus.
These new calculations are looking at planets around 10 times the size of earth - much smaller than Saturn.
I watched The Sky at Night listed above and one of the scientists featured mentioned WISE. He said that even though WISE did cover most of the sky, it's equipment was not sensitive enough to spot any [planets smaller than Saturn i.e. it could not have seen a Neptune or Uranus.
These new calculations are looking at planets around 10 times the size of earth - much smaller than Saturn.
Eric Mc said:
These new calculations are looking at planets around 10 times the size of earth - much smaller than Saturn.
An annoying pedant on the internet said:
I always find size a bit vague. I think on the Sky At Night it was given as 10 times the mass, and 2 - 4 times the diameter, of the earth.
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