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2015 BP519, nicknamed "Caju", is another extreme trans-Neptunian object that points to the existence of Planet Nine. Discovered with data from the Dark Energy Survey, Caju has a relatively large diameter, estimated at around 400-700 km, meaning the object could be a gravitationally rounded dwarf planet. It also has a highly inclined orbit of 54°, which a team of scientists says can be explained by the presence of the hypothetical Planet Nine:
After discovering it, the team tried to investigate 2015 BP519's origins using computer simulations of the Solar System. However, these tests were not able to adequately explain how the object had ended with such an orbit.
But when the team added a ninth planet with properties exactly matching those predicted by the Caltech scientists in 2016, the orbit of 2015 BP519 suddenly made sense. "The second you put Planet Nine in the simulations, not only can you form objects like this object, but you absolutely do," Juliette Becker, a Michigan graduate student and lead author of the study told Quanta.
Some researchers, however, caution that Planet Nine may not be the only explanation for 2015 BP519's strange orbit. Michele Bannister, a planetary astronomer from Queen's University Belfast, in Ireland, who was not involved in the study, told Newsweek that while the latest findings were "a great discovery," other scenarios could account for its tilt. "This object is unusual because it's on a high inclination," she said. "This can be used to maybe tell us some things about its formation process. There are a number of models that suggest you can probably put objects like this into the shape of orbit and the tilt of orbit that we see today."
Also at Quanta Magazine.
Discovery and Dynamical Analysis of an Extreme Trans-Neptunian Object with a High Orbital Inclination (arXiv:1805.05355)
Related: Medieval Records Could Point the Way to Planet Nine
(Score: 5, Interesting) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday May 17 2018, @04:17PM (2 children)
It's an interesting question. Clearly opinion is divided still on whether it actually exists or not. (There's more than a fair amount of "show me the planet!" advocates among the educated.)
I'm no astrophysicist either, just an amateur astronomer with a primary focus on Lunar study. That is a harsh enough mistress for me. Trying to follow the arguments, though, seems to imply that the fourteen objects under study would have a common effector in a single object. If I get it correctly, the objects are not synchronized in periodicity. Multiple objects exerting influence would therefore have to be in such perfect alignment with each other that they uniformly act on all the objects under study with similarity as if there was a single body acting at the hypothesized Planet Nine orbit. (If they've been acted upon at all - the first alternate explanation is still "coincidence"). A single body seems more likely than a synchronized multiple to me, but that might just be a distortion of Occam's razor. (A one body solution seems neater and tidier, but there isn't a layperson explanation for why it would be truly "simpler").
I think that at least one of the alternative theories in the Wikipedia article, "inclination instability due to mass of undetected objects," proposes exactly what you're describing. Later "de la Fuente Marcos et al. (2014)" under the Kozai theories propose a two-body resonance which is still more than just one.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Thursday May 17 2018, @05:39PM
Nice.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday May 17 2018, @08:38PM
Interesting.
Its computationally easier, so lets go with that.
Your other part: Multiple objects exerting influence would therefore have to be in such perfect alignment with each other... (By perfect alignment, I assume you mean a just-so story of planets, big and small, moons, asteroids etc, that over the fullness of time happened to cause an unusual orbit of a small body).
That is likely to be the case that will happen automatically in ANY and EVERY system. Almost by definition. The orbit(s) of all bodies in the system are what they are precisely because they have adjusted to the presence of each other over eons. It isn't the only configuration that COULD exist, but its the only one that DOES exist; at this very moment. Its probably evolving every day, at rates so slow we can not fathom it or simulate it.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.