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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: 4, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday May 06 2018, @09:40PM (5 children)

    by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Sunday May 06 2018, @09:40PM (#676453)

    The stupid Live science article states that 1066 was in the Dark Ages, which is wrong. It was firmly in the Middle Ages, and in fact Dark Ages is not a thing. It is now known as the Early Middle Ages.

    Sorry, this annoyed me more than it should perhaps and I had to get it off my chest.

    Carry on now.

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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Monday May 07 2018, @01:01AM (4 children)

    by aristarchus (2645) on Monday May 07 2018, @01:01AM (#676514) Journal

    I was there! Pretty frigging dark! More darkness than light! People becoming illiterate, travel was very dangerous, roving bands of deplorables (we called them "Germanic Barbarians"), and Twitter was the dominate mode of communication. There was an idiot king, and a mad man for a pope, but fortunately the Idiot King fired the pope, and he had to go back to Brietbart, so things were not as bad as they could have been. Kinda like now, actually.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @01:22AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @01:22AM (#676523)
      Whatever else you may think of the Papacy, the current occupant of the Throne of St. Peter is far [soylentnews.org] more [soylentnews.org] sane [soylentnews.org] than many other world leaders today.
    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday May 07 2018, @07:08AM (1 child)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday May 07 2018, @07:08AM (#676567) Journal

      Pretty frigging dark! More darkness than light!

      Well, only about 100 or so years later, there was a mongol who got annoyed by that darkness and started to lit villages and cities - as in "setting them alight".
      Needless to say, after a while it was even darker and somehow colder.

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday May 07 2018, @10:36AM

        by aristarchus (2645) on Monday May 07 2018, @10:36AM (#676605) Journal

        If you have not seen it, check out "Urga",

        a 1991 film by Russian director Nikita Mikhalkov. It was released in North America as Close to Eden. It depicts the friendship between a Russian truck driver and a Mongolian shepherd in Inner Mongolia.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close_to_Eden [wikipedia.org] English language title sucks, as usual. But, Mongol enlightenment? Sounds good to me! Compared to the Lombogards in the Dark Ages!