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posted by janrinok on Sunday May 06 2018, @01:46PM   Printer-friendly
from the past-stars dept.

Medieval astronomical records, such as the Bayeux Tapestry, could help narrow down the location (or at least infer the existence) of the hypothetical Planet Nine:

Scientists suspect the existence of Planet Nine because it would explain some of the gravitational forces at play in the Kuiper Belt, a stretch of icy bodies beyond Neptune. But no one has been able to detect the planet yet, though astronomers are scanning the skies for it with tools such as the Subaru Telescope on Hawaii's Mauna Kea volcano.

Medieval records could provide another tool, said Pedro Lacerda, a Queen's University astronomer and the other leader of the project.

"We can take the orbits of comets currently known and use a computer to calculate the times when those comets would be visible in the skies during the Middle Ages," Lacerda told Live Science. "The precise times depend on whether our computer simulations include Planet Nine. So, in simple terms, we can use the medieval comet sightings to check which computer simulations work best: the ones that include Planet Nine or the ones that do not."

Also at Queen's University Belfast.

Related: "Planet Nine" Might Explain the Solar System's Tilt
Planet Nine's Existence Disfavoured by New Data
Study of ETNOs Supports Planet Nine's Existence
Passing Star Influenced Comet Orbits in Our Solar System 70,000 Years Ago


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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday May 06 2018, @06:07PM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday May 06 2018, @06:07PM (#676418) Journal

    I'll admit there isn't a lot of substance to this story. For example, no paper published. But they say this much:

    "We have a wealth of historical records of comets in Old English, Old Irish, Latin and Russian which have been overlooked for a long time," said university medievalist Marilina Cesario, one of the leaders of the project. "Early medieval people were fascinated by the heavens, as much as we are today."

    The records include dates and times, Cesario said, which makes them useful to modern-day astronomers.

    In some cases, there may be sightings of the same comet in different countries, making it easier to get an accurate date/time. Hopefully, somebody will find some truly overlooked sightings and be able to plug them into a formula. But it would be truly amazing if they can get enough accurate data to actually come up with new, tighter constraints on where to look for Planet Nine (as well as confirming that Mike Brown and co.'s current search area is correct).

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