FelixDeCat
Lifer
- Aug 4, 2000
- 30,618
- 2,587
- 126
- Apr 28, 2024
- 1,039
- 1,392
- 96
when the Vera C. Rubin Observatory goes online sometime in 2025, one of its missions will be providing unprecedented clarity into what lurks beyond Neptune, potentially revealing 10 times as many Solar System objects as are known today.
For centuries, astronomers have been shining a flashlight, hoping to stumble upon a cosmic mystery in the darkness. Hopefully when the Vera C. Rubin Observatory finally arrives, it’ll be like turning on a light switch.
www.popularmechanics.com
For centuries, astronomers have been shining a flashlight, hoping to stumble upon a cosmic mystery in the darkness. Hopefully when the Vera C. Rubin Observatory finally arrives, it’ll be like turning on a light switch.
An Astronomer Has Found the Hardest Evidence Yet for the Elusive Planet Nine
We could be getting closer to solving the universe’s biggest mystery.
GodisanAtheist
Diamond Member
- Nov 16, 2006
- 7,960
- 9,109
- 136
when the Vera C. Rubin Observatory goes online sometime in 2025, one of its missions will be providing unprecedented clarity into what lurks beyond Neptune, potentially revealing 10 times as many Solar System objects as are known today.
For centuries, astronomers have been shining a flashlight, hoping to stumble upon a cosmic mystery in the darkness. Hopefully when the Vera C. Rubin Observatory finally arrives, it’ll be like turning on a light switch.
An Astronomer Has Found the Hardest Evidence Yet for the Elusive Planet Nine
We could be getting closer to solving the universe’s biggest mystery.
-Whoa the subheader on that link is really overselling Planet
- Apr 28, 2024
- 1,039
- 1,392
- 96
Just hyped for planet !X
& yes the LSST Observatory will definitely confirm the existence (or absence) of planet nine
So expect more posts on this line in future
- Dec 11, 1999
- 16,583
- 4,495
- 75
Obligatory XKCD:
Personally, I think planet should be defined as an object with enough mass to retain an atmosphere not orbiting an object that is not a star. (Where "orbiting" an object means the combined center of mass is entirely inside that object. If two objects of similar mass orbit each other you can have a double planet.) This would mean Mercury is not a planet either.
FelixDeCat
Lifer
- Aug 4, 2000
- 30,618
- 2,587
- 126
- Apr 28, 2024
- 1,039
- 1,392
- 96
The observatory will be a game-changer in the hunt for Planet 9, agrees Scott Sheppard of Carnegie Science, one of the researchers who first suggested that a big planet could be the culprit that was messing with the orbits of some small solar system bodies.
"Vera Rubin is our best bet to find it in the next few years, probably," says Sheppard. "It's going to turn over more rocks than anyone has turned over before."
If Planet 9 is real, this observatory has around a 70 to 80 percent chance of finding it, he estimates, adding that it's not a sure thing because there are so many uncertainties.
"We don't know the size of the planet. We don't know the reflectivity of the planet. We don't know the distance of the planet," says Sheppard. "Those three things will determine how bright this planet actually is."
If Planet 9 is on the smaller side, dark, and really far away, he explains, "it's going to be on the edge of Vera Rubin detection, and Vera Rubin may not find it."
But even if it doesn't spot Planet 9 directly, the Rubin Observatory might find some more minor planets, ones whose orbits might be affected by Planet 9. And that could provide additional evidence that such a giant planet really exists.
Up until now, says Sheppard, astronomers haven't found enough small, far-off minor planets with orbits that can be analyzed for evidence of Planet 9's gravitational influence, so he thinks the existence of this planet is an open question.
"The statistics just aren't there to definitively say yes or no," he says.
"Vera Rubin is our best bet to find it in the next few years, probably," says Sheppard. "It's going to turn over more rocks than anyone has turned over before."
If Planet 9 is real, this observatory has around a 70 to 80 percent chance of finding it, he estimates, adding that it's not a sure thing because there are so many uncertainties.
"We don't know the size of the planet. We don't know the reflectivity of the planet. We don't know the distance of the planet," says Sheppard. "Those three things will determine how bright this planet actually is."
If Planet 9 is on the smaller side, dark, and really far away, he explains, "it's going to be on the edge of Vera Rubin detection, and Vera Rubin may not find it."
But even if it doesn't spot Planet 9 directly, the Rubin Observatory might find some more minor planets, ones whose orbits might be affected by Planet 9. And that could provide additional evidence that such a giant planet really exists.
Up until now, says Sheppard, astronomers haven't found enough small, far-off minor planets with orbits that can be analyzed for evidence of Planet 9's gravitational influence, so he thinks the existence of this planet is an open question.
"The statistics just aren't there to definitively say yes or no," he says.
At an estimated distance of 700 AU, I don't see why they call it a planet. In fact, I think it's silly of them to want to include bodies beyond Neptune as part of the solar system. There could be thousands of rocky planets circling the sun, in almost pitch darkness. What would be the point of getting to know about them?
- Apr 28, 2024
- 1,039
- 1,392
- 96
The Kuiper belt, whose population and structure are only vaguely known, stands to be greatly illuminated by Rubin. After nearly four decades of searching, astronomers have found about 4,000 objects out there. “With Rubin, it should go up to about 40,000,”
If it orbits our star, it's part of our solar system, that's the actual definition of a solar system. If it fits the definition of a planet it should be called one (and vice versa).
Technically yes but at something like 700AU, is the Sun's gravity strong enough to matter? Maybe the unknown planet is just barely orbiting the Sun because what else it gonna do? It doesn't have thrusters to fly away or into the Sun. The definition should be revised with regards to the AU distance where the Sun's gravitational pull is strong enough to keep the planet from ever breaking free. If planet 9 is indeed exerting a significant influence on the Kuiper Belt objects, then that's kinda laughing in the face of the Sun and going, "Haha! You so weak that I'm messing with the objects orbiting YOU!".
Of course it is, if it's still in orbit the sun's gravity is very actually strong enough to matter, just like every other object orbiting our star.
skyking
Lifer
- Nov 21, 2001
- 22,647
- 5,761
- 146
- Apr 28, 2024
- 1,039
- 1,392
- 96
Anyone know about the Small Planet Radius Gap ?
This is the first time, that I am hearing about it...
en.wikipedia.org
This is the first time, that I am hearing about it...
Small planet radius gap - Wikipedia
- Apr 28, 2024
- 1,039
- 1,392
- 96
Planet 10 ??
research, posted this month to the preprint server arXiv and set to publish in the Proceedings of the Astronomical Society of Australia, comes from a group of scientists in Taiwan, Japan, and Australia. The group pored over archival data from two infrared space telescopes, NASA’s IRAS mission from 1983, and Japan’s AKARI satellite from 2006 to 2007. Their goal: find any object that’s cold, faint, and slow enough to be Planet Nine.
"interesting point is that the orbit of this object is not consistent with our predictions for Planet Nine,” Brown added. “That doesn’t mean it is not real, just that if it IS real it is not the predicted Planet Nine, it is something unpredicted.”
“My suspicion is that it is simply noise, but it will be fun to find out,” he said.
research, posted this month to the preprint server arXiv and set to publish in the Proceedings of the Astronomical Society of Australia, comes from a group of scientists in Taiwan, Japan, and Australia. The group pored over archival data from two infrared space telescopes, NASA’s IRAS mission from 1983, and Japan’s AKARI satellite from 2006 to 2007. Their goal: find any object that’s cold, faint, and slow enough to be Planet Nine.
"interesting point is that the orbit of this object is not consistent with our predictions for Planet Nine,” Brown added. “That doesn’t mean it is not real, just that if it IS real it is not the predicted Planet Nine, it is something unpredicted.”
“My suspicion is that it is simply noise, but it will be fun to find out,” he said.
- Apr 28, 2024
- 1,039
- 1,392
- 96
In a study led by Terry Long Phan posted to the arXiv preprint server, the team searches for Planet Nine candidates by using two far-infrared all-sky surveys, IRAS and AKARI, whose 23-year separation allows detection of Planet Nine's expected orbital motion (~3′/year). The search uses the AKARI Far-Infrared Monthly Unconfirmed Source List (AKARI-MUSL), which is better suited for identifying faint, moving objects than the standard AKARI Bright Source Catalogue.
Researchers estimated Planet Nine's expected flux and motion based on assumed mass, distance and temperature, then applied positional and flux criteria to match sources between IRAS and AKARI. They identified 13 candidate pairs with angular separations corresponding to heliocentric distances of 500–700 AU and masses of seven to 17 Earth masses.
After a rigorous analysis and selection process, including visual inspection of images, the team identified one strong candidate pair, where the IRAS and AKARI sources showed the expected angular separation (42′–69.6′) and were not detected at the same position in each survey. The AKARI detection probability map confirmed the candidate's consistency with a slow-moving object, showing two detections on one date and none six months earlier.
However, IRAS and AKARI data alone are insufficient to determine a precise orbit so there will need to be follow-up observations to confirm the candidate and fully determine its orbit using DECam, which can detect faint moving objects within about an hour of exposure, aiding in understanding the solar system's evolution and structure.
phys.org
Researchers estimated Planet Nine's expected flux and motion based on assumed mass, distance and temperature, then applied positional and flux criteria to match sources between IRAS and AKARI. They identified 13 candidate pairs with angular separations corresponding to heliocentric distances of 500–700 AU and masses of seven to 17 Earth masses.
After a rigorous analysis and selection process, including visual inspection of images, the team identified one strong candidate pair, where the IRAS and AKARI sources showed the expected angular separation (42′–69.6′) and were not detected at the same position in each survey. The AKARI detection probability map confirmed the candidate's consistency with a slow-moving object, showing two detections on one date and none six months earlier.
However, IRAS and AKARI data alone are insufficient to determine a precise orbit so there will need to be follow-up observations to confirm the candidate and fully determine its orbit using DECam, which can detect faint moving objects within about an hour of exposure, aiding in understanding the solar system's evolution and structure.
Is this the first hint of Planet Nine?
The solar system consists of our star, the sun, and everything bound to it by gravity: the planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, along with dwarf planets like Pluto, dozens of moons, and millions of asteroids and comets. The planets orbit the sun in...
- Apr 28, 2024
- 1,039
- 1,392
- 96
if the researchers are right, their planet would disprove the original planet. They would make each other’s orbits unstable and could not exist together, he explained.
“It’s kind of fun that a paper that purports to find a candidate for Planet Nine is really finding something that would basically say that we were wrong the entire time,” he noted.
www.yahoo.com
“It’s kind of fun that a paper that purports to find a candidate for Planet Nine is really finding something that would basically say that we were wrong the entire time,” he noted.
A 9th planet in our solar system might be found — and no, it’s not Pluto
Is there another planet out there? Researchers say they have hints of a new candidate
- Apr 28, 2024
- 1,039
- 1,392
- 96
Based on how bright the object appears in both datasets, the researchers estimate it could be even more massive than Neptune. That’s surprising because the team was originally looking for something smaller—maybe a super-Earth. Yet, it fits the expectations for Planet Nine‘s estimated mass and distance better than anything found so far.
interestingengineering.com
New Planet Nine candidate is 700 times farther from the sun than Earth
A team of international scientists has identified a promising Planet Nine candidate by comparing infrared surveys of the sky taken with a 23-year gap.
interestingengineering.com
- Apr 28, 2024
- 1,039
- 1,392
- 96
It appears in one position in IRAS's 1983 image, though it was not in that position when AKARI looked. However, there is an object seen by AKARI in a position 47.4 arcminutes away that isn't there in the IRAS imagery, and it is within the range that Planet Nine could have traveled in the intervening time. In other words, this object has moved a little further along its orbit around the sun in the 23 or more years between IRAS and AKARI.
The knowledge of its motion in that intervening time is not sufficient to be able to extrapolate the object's full orbit, therefore it's not yet possible to say for certain whether this is Planet Nine. First, astronomers need to recover it in more up-to-date imagery.
"Once we know the position of the candidate, a longer exposure with the current large optical telescopes can detect it," Phan told Space.com. "However, the follow-up observations with optical telescopes still need to cover about three square degrees because Planet Nine would have moved from the position where AKARI detected it in 2006. This is doable with a camera that has a large field of view, such as the Dark Energy Camera, which has a field of view of three square degrees on the Blanco four-meter telescope [in Chile]."
www.space.com
The knowledge of its motion in that intervening time is not sufficient to be able to extrapolate the object's full orbit, therefore it's not yet possible to say for certain whether this is Planet Nine. First, astronomers need to recover it in more up-to-date imagery.
"Once we know the position of the candidate, a longer exposure with the current large optical telescopes can detect it," Phan told Space.com. "However, the follow-up observations with optical telescopes still need to cover about three square degrees because Planet Nine would have moved from the position where AKARI detected it in 2006. This is doable with a camera that has a large field of view, such as the Dark Energy Camera, which has a field of view of three square degrees on the Blanco four-meter telescope [in Chile]."
Evidence of controversial Planet 9 uncovered in sky surveys taken 23 years apart
If the object really is Planet Nine, it would be larger than Neptune and exist 700 times further from the sun than Earth.
Indus
Lifer
- May 11, 2002
- 14,774
- 10,315
- 136
TRENDING THREADS
-
Discussion Zen 5 Speculation (EPYC Turin and Strix Point/Granite Ridge - Ryzen 9000)- Started by DisEnchantment
- Replies: 24K
-
Discussion Intel Meteor, Arrow, Lunar & Panther Lakes Discussion Threads
- Started by Tigerick
- Replies: 20K
-
-
-
Facebook
Twitter