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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.
(Score: 4, Informative) by juggs on Monday March 10 2014, @03:46AM
It gives some kind of human scale to those not familiar with AU. That said I'm not sure how humanly comprehendable 93 million miles is either beyond "woah - that sounds like a long way". Might be better to say ~3741 times around the planet earth. No doubt that would also be met with "woah - that sounds like a long way", shortly followed by "wait now. how big is earth?", some time after followed by "What do you mean by circumference? That's something something round things right? But isn't the earth flat? Looks flat in my atlas.". :D /ethanol-fuelled nonsense
(Score: 5, Informative) by c0lo on Monday March 10 2014, @06:18AM
Using human scale for astronomical distance... you think is a well-defined problem?
Let's try something else: after more than 34 years since launched, traveling at 17 km/s (11 mi/s), Voyager 1 is at 127.11 AU [nasa.gov]. Would you drive your super-V8 car at 360 km/h (200 m/h), you will cover the same distance in a approx 6735 years; don't try this at home.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by isostatic on Monday March 10 2014, @08:52PM
Would you drive your super-V8 car at 360 km/h (200 m/h), you will cover the same distance in a approx 6735 years; don't try this at home.
Quite, I'd smash through the patio doors in about 10ms, it would be expensive.
I think of long distances as groups of moon distance. I can relate to that, it's about twice as far as I fly each year.
25,000 AU is how far I'd fly in 15 million years. I can't relate to that.
I can't even cope with 1AU though, if I flew the same distance as I have done in the last crazy 2 months - around the world each month - it would still take centuries to get there.