SoylentNews

Medieval Records Could Point the Way to Planet Nine

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

takyon writes:

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

---

Original Submission

• Re:Interesting theory if it holds, except... Re:Interesting theory if it holds, except... (Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday May 07 2018, @06:53AM (1 child)

  by c0lo (156) on Monday May 07 2018, @06:53AM (#676562) Journal

  Now, here's the kick: if you find where a planet was 500 years ago, and it's orbit, you can calculate where it would be now.

  Not quite. It would be so if you include some assumptions - like the ecliptic plane somehow aligned with the rest in a smallish angle (which will imply some eccentricity limits, otherwise its orbit would not be stable).
  While the knowledge of a single point is more than nothing, it doesn't make your job easier in the general sense.

  Even if each particular record is unreliable, with enough records, they could whittle down the possible orbits quite a bit.

  I have a hunch it will require enough records about different positions at different times.
  You can whittle down an infinity of possible orbits and still have an infinity of them still possible (as in: a straight unbound line has as many points as any segment. Even if you divide a segment, the resulting two segments will still have the same number of points)

  --
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford

  Parent

  Starting Score:	1		point
  Karma-Bonus Modifier		+1
  Total Score:		2

• Re:Interesting theory if it holds, except... (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @07:28AM

  by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @07:28AM (#676571)

  While the knowledge of a single point is more than nothing, it doesn't make your job easier in the general sense. (...) I have a hunch it will require enough records about different positions at different times.

  Well, yeah, when I said "and it's orbit", I thought it was obvious that you'd need several points to define it. Sorry about that.

  Parent