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No Evidence for 'Planet X', says NASA

posted by girlwhowaspluggedout on Monday March 10 2014, @12:01AM   Printer-friendly
from the who-keeps-atlantis-off-the-maps dept.

Papas Fritas writes:

"Ian O'Neill writes in Discovery Magazine that despite NASA's best efforts to track it down, there is no evidence for the existence of Planet X. This hypothetical world that may or may not be orbiting the sun beyond the orbit of Pluto has inspired many a doomsday theory. In the run-up to the much anticipated "Mayan Doomsday" of December 21, 2012, the marauding Planet X was scheduled to make a inner-solar system dash, sparking gravitational mayhem and triggering civilization-ending solar flares.

But in spite of the doomsday nonsense, the hunt for "Planet X" actually has roots in real science. In the mid- to late-19th Century, astronomers were tracking the gravitational perturbations of the gas giant planets in an effort to track down an undiscovered world in the outermost reaches of the solar system. This hypothetical massive planet was dubbed "Planet X." However, this fascinating trail ended with the discovery of tiny Pluto in 1930. The idea that the sun may have a stellar partner has also been investigated, perhaps there's a brown dwarf going unnoticed out there. Nicknamed "Nemesis," this binary partner could be evading detection. One strong piece of evidence laid in the discovery of the "Kuiper Cliff," a sudden drop-off of Kuiper Belt objects in the region just beyond Pluto. Could the Cliff be caused by a previously overlooked world? Also, geological record has suggested there's a regularity to mass extinctions on Earth linked to comet impacts. Could a distant orbiting body be perturbing comets, sending them our way on a cyclical basis?

However, the Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds at Penn State University has analyzed data from NASA's Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), a space telescope that carried out a detailed infrared survey of the entire sky from 2010 to 2011. If something big is lurking out there, WISE would easily have spotted it. According to a NASA news release, "no object the size of Saturn or larger exists out to a distance of 10,000 astronomical units (AU), and no object larger than Jupiter exists out to 26,000 AU. One astronomical unit equals 93 million miles. Earth is 1 AU, and Pluto about 40 AU, from the sun." Observations by WISE have also ruled out the Planet X Comet Perturbation theory.

 
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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by gishzida on Monday March 10 2014, @12:51AM

    by gishzida (2870) on Monday March 10 2014, @12:51AM (#13702) Journal
    I saw this article [nature.com] the other day. The Nature article in effect says that it may be that the motion of the solar system through "heaver concentrations of dark matter" which causes comets to bombard the inner solar system on the order of ever 35M years. No need for planet X when stuff you can't see will do the job.
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by frojack on Monday March 10 2014, @05:07AM

    by frojack (1554) on Monday March 10 2014, @05:07AM (#13750) Journal

    No need for planet X when stuff you can't see will do the job.

    No need to make up entire planets when you can simply make up undetectable other mysterious stuff.

    If ANY OTHER field of science invented equation balancing kludges like Dark Matter the physicists would laugh them off the podium. But basically When Asked [about.com] they simply say it balances our equations, even if we can't find a single method to detect it.

    Every once in a while a Totally Different Theory [time.com] comes along, only to be kicked to the curb. But like Planet X, Dark Matter will probably prove to be something totally different. Or several things. Or several dimensions. Who knows.

    When your best fudge factor accounts for well in excess of 80% of the universe, your chances of being right in the end are virtually nil.

    Planet X, we hardly knew ya!.

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.