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Australian National University reports:
Astronomers from The Australian National University (ANU) are investigating four unknown objects that could be candidates for a new planet in our Solar System, following the launch of their planetary search on the BBC's Stargazing Live broadcast from the ANU Siding Spring Observatory.
Lead researcher Dr Brad Tucker said about 60,000 people from around the world had classified over four million objects in space as part of the ANU-led citizen search for the so-called Planet 9.
"We've detected minor planets Chiron and Comacina, which demonstrates the approach we're taking could find Planet 9 if it's there," said Dr Tucker from the ANU Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics.
...
"We've managed to rule out a planet about the size of Neptune being in about 90 per cent of the southern sky out to a depth of about 350 times the distance the Earth is from the Sun," he said.
takyon: Estimates of Planet Nine's size put it at as little as half the radius of Neptune. The likely colder temperature of such a planet could result in a higher density.
The article mentions 2060 Chiron and 489 Comacina.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Saturday April 01 2017, @12:10AM (3 children)
April 1st... Time to take a break from the internet.
Except Twitter's @POTUS, where the game is on 24/365 to guess whether each post is an intentional joke.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday April 01 2017, @12:55AM (2 children)
Are you accusing us of posting #FakeNews?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Saturday April 01 2017, @01:26AM
We live in a time when The Onion is more accurate than the White House, and the White House loves that, because you can't get away with lots of shit when nobody believe anything they hear anymore...
Yet SN has not been posting April fools, and I hope it stays that way.
It's the rest of the web that's problematic for another 24 hours...
More on-topic, can't we just calculate all the possible positions of planet 9 from the anomalies we observe, and point a telescope there? It's worked before, at least on a planet which doesn't have a visible-light cloaking shield.
Secondary question: given how long the outer planets take to orbit the sun, and how nicely they were lined up fairly recently for a photo-op with our probes, what are the odds that there's something pretty big on the opposite side of the solar system, which we wouldn't see the gravitational effects of for a few centuries?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by aristarchus on Saturday April 01 2017, @01:31AM
If you recall, from the original film, Soylent Green was green because it allegedly made from algae, vegan! or at the very least vegetarian. But then Charleton Heston discovered the truth! Dice is not made of people! It is a mindless corporation!