The Space Thread

Damn, if the thing exists, that's a hell of a long way out, and it has a weird orbit, too. I wonder how it would have formed? Seems unlikely that the same process that produced the other planets would produce it, as well.

Ars Technica has an article that goes deeper into the science of why the think it exists and where they think it is.

edited 20th Jan '16 3:04:52 PM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Rouge Capture?

That guy's being a jerk to poor ole Pluto.

Secret Signature

That's possible, certainly, but ten times Earth's mass seems rather large to be a bit of space junk that happened to pass by the sun. Of course, I'm not an astrophysicist, so I could be completely wrong. Though I wouldn't be surprised if even the astrophysicists didn't want to hazard a guess until they can get a better idea of where it actually is and what it's composed of — if it even exists at all.

edited 20th Jan '16 3:10:23 PM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Theia is back,with a vengeance?

Secret Signature

Nah, Theia was theroetically a Mars-sized rocky planet that had the same orbit as Earth (ie, 1 AU from the sun) until it was perturbed by Jupiter and eventually collided with Earth to form the moon. A better comparison would be Tyche, a theoretical gas giant intended to explain the behavior of long-period comets. Sadly, even that one is both too large (~4 times the mass of Jupiter) and too far (part of the Oort cloud) to be Planet IX (which is supposed to be roughly the size of Neptune and have an orbit about 200-600 AU from the sun).

edited 20th Jan '16 3:33:59 PM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

I say name it Apollo. He's one of the cooler greek gods. Plus it would pay tribute to the Apollo program. How do they go about naming planets these days?

I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.

It got flinged away by Mercury,that's why it has the Caloris Basin.

Yeah,I got nothing.So this guy stole packed up a bunch of material from the good old days and left the club,huh.

Numbers.I'd go with Tartaros myself.Sure would feel like it.

edited 20th Jan '16 4:13:57 PM by alekos23

Secret Signature

The International Astronomical Union is in charge of naming celestial bodies and features thereof. My understanding is that they take suggestions from discoverers of said bodies/features, but they won't accept suggestions that don't fit their standards. It's very unlikely that an actual honest-to-god planet would be named anything except a Roman god, for example.

edited 20th Jan '16 4:18:22 PM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Well the world is a lot more international now. I can't imagine China and India would be happy at being so underrepresented in the naming of Planets.

I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.

Maybe it's this fella?

Secret Signature

Actually odd are good that it was formed right along with the other planets and its current exile is due to interactions with other planets (probably the gas giants, both past and present) that gave it enough energy to send it out into its current orbit without quite imparting enough energy to kick it out of the solar system entirely.

Planet Nine may help us visit other stars Or maybe not. Am I the only one who finds this whole planet Nine business to good to be true?

I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.

Nein

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes

What the hell are you guys talking about? We already have a ninth planet; we just got our first fly-by images of it a few months ago.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Goddamnit, and we were doing so well, too. Way to ruin it, man.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Has Planet 10 cleared his orbit?

Secret Signature

What the hell are you talking about? Even if you consider Pluto to be a planet, it's not the ninth. Under the current scheme, if Pluto is a planet, then so is Ceres and then Pluto would be the tenth planet.

Pluto was downgraded a few years back, if I remember correctly...

Keep Rolling On

Oh, so sorry. I keep forgetting about Ceres, especially since its potential planet status was never officially upgraded even after Pluto's discovery.

... Um, I think he knows that. That's what I got from his post's wording, at least.

Nevermind that the logic behind Pluto, Ceres, et al.'s exclusion from planetary status is unsound, because Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Neptune have not cleared their respective neighbourhoods and so should be disqualified by the same principle.

edited 21st Jan '16 1:50:10 PM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

We don't want to many planets for children to memorize, and all the scientists felt like if we had to keep Ceres and the other planets off the list we might as well kick off Pluto as well.

I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.

I seriously do not get the butthurt over Pluto's officially being considered a planet or not. Seriously, who the hell cares? The science doesn't support considering Pluto the same type of object as a proper planet. It doesn't change anything about Pluto. Pluto can still be your favorite celestial body if you want it to be. It's just not a damn planet.

Anyway, the link you provided undermines your own argument. "Clearing the neighborhood" doesn't mean that nothing else exists in that orbit, it means that everything else in that orbit is gravitationally dominated by that body. The existence of moons (which orbit the planet), trojan objects (which are trapped in a specific location due to the planet's gravitational influence), and near-planet asteroids (which will eventually either be pulled into the planet or ejected from its orbit) do not disqualify something from having "cleared its neighborhood".

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

I've got to agree. Trying to claim the Trojan asteroids count against having cleared the neighbourhood when they are, by definition gravitationally bound to Jupiter really come across as grabbing at straws.

Especially considering that Jupiter is powerful enough to not only dominate it's own orbit, but to affect other orbits as well. Mighty Jove actually controls the orbits of a lot of main belt asteroids as well.

If it's planet Nine maybe we should name it Ed Wood.

Trump delenda est

Or we call it Nemesis to mess with conspiracy nuts.

Direct all enquiries to Jamie B Good