"Large Planet Outside Pluto's Orbit"

[vger]

How in the heck did we get from "rogue planet mucking with ice giant orbits" to alien cover-ups?

Edited July 15, 2015 by vger

[Tex_NL]

Space is big. Like, unbelievably, impossibly big. You'd think big is walking down the country lane to the nearest store, but space is way bigger than that.

You got the quote wrong!

"Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space."

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

[Darnok]

No, no they can't. Even if planets were arranged in such a way that their net gravitational influence on, say, Jupiter, was zero (which is incredibly unlikely in itself), their influence on every single other body in the solar system would be non-zero.

And the moon is tidally locked to earth, it's not just some lucky coincidence: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_locking

The majority of moons are tidally locked to their parent bodies.

I will create new thread to continue discussion about DNA and CMB...

As for Moon, how many moons from that list have rotation and orbital periods locked exactly like our Moon?

"The Moon's rotation and orbital periods are tidally locked with each other, so no matter when the Moon is observed from Earth the same hemisphere of the Moon is always seen. "

Interesting wiki article about hypothetical planets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hypothetical_Solar_System_objects

[magnemoe]

FWIW, the WISE satellite did a survey of the entire sky in infrared, and it would have detected anything Neptune-sized out to 700 AU, and anything Jupiter-sized to 1 light-year, so that establishes an upper bound on anything that could be orbiting out there.

1 lightyear is so far out the planet would have an large chance getting expelled, at two lightyear this is pretty much guaranteed.

How far out would we get something at the size of earth? My guess is that its unlikely we find something larger than mars.

[peadar1987]

As for Moon, how many moons from that list have rotation and orbital periods locked exactly like our Moon?

"The Moon's rotation and orbital periods are tidally locked with each other, so no matter when the Moon is observed from Earth the same hemisphere of the Moon is always seen. "

Every single one of them. That is all tidal locking is. If you were on the "surface" of Jupiter, you would only ever observe one hemisphere of Io, Europa, Ganymede or Callisto. If you were on Triton looking at Neptune it would never rise or set.

[Aanker]

How in the heck did we get from "rogue planet mucking with ice giant orbits" to alien cover-ups?

Indeed. As I wrote in the OP, discussion of aliens/niburu/conspiracies is basically off topic. Other than that, it's an interesting discussion and there are many informative replies.

[LordFerret]

And that's the thing. We can find all kinds of dwarf planets, asteroids etc. beyond Pluto's orbit. But we can't find a massive body rivaling Eart, or even Neptune in size? Nah.

I tend to agree with this. The object in question is thought to be twice the size of Earth, which supposedly would provide mass enough to fit some of the speculation about TNOs... but not quite. However, I more tend to believe a scenario of passing/colliding neighbor star and/or capture, as such is believed with Sedna. This speculation about Sedna is a bit more sound, which actually fits the picture better. This was recently discussed in the Pluto New Horizons thread. I'll share the link here again ... http://arxiv.org/pdf/1506.03105v1.pdf

You can add to this another discovery from last year, which also fits this picture ...

http://mnras.oxfordjournals.org/content/446/4/3788.short

[JetJaguar]

1 lightyear is so far out the planet would have an large chance getting expelled, at two lightyear this is pretty much guaranteed.

How far out would we get something at the size of earth? My guess is that its unlikely we find something larger than mars.

One light year is considered to be about the extreme limit of the Sun's gravitational influence. According to this article, a planet would have to be large enough to have it's own internal heat source to be detected by WISE, and even an Earth-sized object in the Kuiper Belt would be too cold to be detected. WISE basically ruled out the possibility of a "Nemesis" type brown dwarf companion, but not a terrestrial-mass object.

[Nikolai]

Every single one of them. That is all tidal locking is. If you were on the "surface" of Jupiter, you would only ever observe one hemisphere of Io, Europa, Ganymede or Callisto. If you were on Triton looking at Neptune it would never rise or set.

Except Hyperion, in orbit around Saturn. Its axis of rotation wobbles so much that it is impossible to predict its period of rotation. Also, Nix and Hydra circling Pluto. And a handful of moons circling gas giants at extreme distances. But the vast majority of moons are exactly as you describe.

EDIT: Oh, wait, "from that list". Sorry. Yes.

[Darnok]

I found https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titius%E2%80%93Bode_law equation that helped to find Ceres. Here is improved version... what are fallibility rules for theory that claims our solar system appeared on its own from dust and gases?

[KerikBalm]

The Titus-Bode law is thoroughly discredited.... any attempt to fit the planetary distances to a numerical sequence is very unlikely to have any predictive power (unless such a sequence is basically the result of a very complex simulation).

As to "what are fallibility rules for theory that claims our solar system appeared on its own from dust and gases?"

I don't even understand what you are asking... what is your native language?

[Darnok]

The Titus-Bode law is thoroughly discredited.... any attempt to fit the planetary distances to a numerical sequence is very unlikely to have any predictive power (unless such a sequence is basically the result of a very complex simulation).

As to "what are fallibility rules for theory that claims our solar system appeared on its own from dust and gases?"

I don't even understand what you are asking... what is your native language?

Hehe it is discredited because it is so simple, but super complicated simulation is ok?

This law led to discovery of Ceres and improved version predicts orbits of all planets (except Eris) its also leads to the obvious conclusion, so it should be replaced by more complicated law

[Ralathon]

Hehe it is discredited because it is so simple, but super complicated simulation is ok?

This law led to discovery of Ceres and improved version predicts orbits of all planets (except Eris) its also leads to the obvious conclusion, so it should be replaced by more complicated law

Give me any sequence of random numbers and I can give you a curve that neatly intersects all of them. Yet that same curve won't predict the next number in that curve (it's random after all).

Titus-Bode is exactly that. They had the data and made up a curve that intersects those points. But it falls apart the moment you try to use it for predictions.

Quick example. Here's your sequence of numbers: 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, X. What is X?

If you answered 9 you would be wrong. It is 8. That sequence is the 762th decimal to the 769th decimal of Pi.

[PakledHostage]

I don't even understand what you are asking... what is your native language?

Tamarian?

[Camacha]

Darnok, you seem to be misunderstanding why and how things become tidally locked. It is pretty certain to happen in a wide array of configurations. It is almost the exact opposite of coincidence. Tidal interactions move energy from the rotation of a body (angular momentum) to its orbital velocity. In short, the friction an orbiting body causes slows the orbited body down.

The Earth and the Moon are not tidally locked to each other, only the Moon is tidally locked to Earth, but not vice versa. The Moon is slowing us down though, slowly making days longer and boosting the Moon away at about 4cm each year. Before the Earth can also become completely tidally locked, however, it will likely be destroyed by the Sun as it goes into the red giant stage before hand.

[Darnok]

Give me any sequence of random numbers and I can give you a curve that neatly intersects all of them. Yet that same curve won't predict the next number in that curve (it's random after all).

Titus-Bode is exactly that. They had the data and made up a curve that intersects those points. But it falls apart the moment you try to use it for predictions.

Quick example. Here's your sequence of numbers: 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, X. What is X?

If you answered 9 you would be wrong. It is 8. That sequence is the 762th decimal to the 769th decimal of Pi.

This law predicted orbit of Ceres.

Now show me solar system with few planets that is build with your sequence.

There is huge difference between writing any random sequence on paper and finding curve that intersects all points AND finding sequence in universe and finding curve, because if that sequence was created by physics then equation (if it is right) can predict next number

[Shpaget]

This law predicted orbit of Ceres

It also failed with Neptune, and missed even the ballpark for Pluto.

[KerikBalm]

it didn't predict the orbit of ceres.... it didn't say anything about eccentricity, inclination, argument of perapsis... etc.

It gave a very rough number that ceres approximately fit.

There may be something going on within the inner solar system that leads to this being a good approximation of where most of the mass will coalesce... but it has utterly failed for the outer solar system.

[Shpaget]

There may be something going on within the inner solar system that leads to this being a good approximation of where most of the mass will coalesce... but it has utterly failed for the outer solar system.

And this leads exactly to what Ralathon said.

You can take any sequence of known numbers and draw a curve through them, without it being able to predict the next (unknown) one. Titus and Bode had the info on inner planets.

[Darnok]

It also failed with Neptune, and missed even the ballpark for Pluto.

Improved version is correct for both of them http://www.astroscu.unam.mx/rmaa/RMxAA..47-1/PDF/RMxAA..47-1_dflores.pdf

As for original version you shouldn't compare current orbits, but those from time when our solar system was very young. Of course we can't be sure how much orbits of planets could change over time. I read that some planets orbits were changed a lot http://www.space.com/4755-trading-cosmic-places-neptune-uranus-swapped-spots.html

Uranus and Neptune could affect each other so much, they even could be at same orbit at beginning, but over time one was ejected.

So the original equation can be right if at beginning of our solar system Neptune and Uranus both were at orbit 19AU, Pluto at 38.8AU and 77AU is very close to Eris.

I know, no evidence, wishful thinking etc etc, but does science ever followed, to find proof?

If that would be the case then in the SI we wouldn't have units like time and mass, because until today there is no evidence of their existence. The only thing we have is models, assumptions and calculations, for which scientists adjust the sequence of numbers just like the one we are talking about

[Shpaget]

Improved version is correct for both of them

Are you talking about the one that was improved after both were discovered?

You do realize that the improved version was tweaked until it fitted?

[KerikBalm]

So then... it needs to have predictive power... what testable prediction does it make?

Otherwise, its just hindsight fitting an equation to the data

[Darnok]

As for improved version you are right it was made ~2009, so it is tweaked to fit our solar system.

But when I am looking at original version a = 0.4 + 0.3*k where k = 0, 1, 2, 4, 8, 2^4... etc etc it is more interesting

The first mention of a series approximating Bode's Law is found in David Gregory's The Elements of Astronomy, published in 1715.

Discovery of:

Uranus in 1781

Ceres in 1801

Neptune in 1846 (like I said before Neptune and Uranus could form in same orbit, we know something happen with both of them we don't know exactly what)

Pluto in 1930 (if we skip Neptune, the 39AU fits Pluto orbit, law predicted there is planet at 39AU and that is true what is wrong is human interpretation and name)

Eris in 2005 ~67AU (10 years observations is not much since estimated orbit around Sun is ~558.04 years and in 2014, its distance from the Sun is 96.4 astronomical units)

So it had predictive power back in 1715

[table=width: 350]

[tr]

[td][/td]

[td]k[/td]

[td]predicted AU[/td]

[td]real AU[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Mercury[/td]

[td]0[/td]

[td]0.4[/td]

[td]0.39[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Venus[/td]

[td]1[/td]

[td]0.7[/td]

[td]0.72[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Earth[/td]

[td]2[/td]

[td]1.0[/td]

[td]1.0[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Mars[/td]

[td]4[/td]

[td]1.6[/td]

[td]1.52[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Ceres[/td]

[td]8[/td]

[td]2.8[/td]

[td]2.77[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Jupiter[/td]

[td]16[/td]

[td]5.2[/td]

[td]5.2[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Saturn[/td]

[td]32[/td]

[td]10.0[/td]

[td]9.54[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Uranus & Neptune[/td]

[td]64[/td]

[td]19.6[/td]

[td]19.2[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Pluto[/td]

[td]128[/td]

[td]38.8[/td]

[td]39.44[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Eris[/td]

[td]256[/td]

[td]77.2[/td]

[td]67.7[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Planet-X [/td]

[td]512[/td]

[td]154[/td]

[td]???[/td]

[/tr]

[tr]

[td]Planet-Y[/td]

[td]1024[/td]

[td]307.6[/td]

[td]???[/td]

[/tr]

[/table]

[Tex_NL]

One can't deny that the Bode's Law formula fits our solar system very nicely. But one also can't deny the fact the human mind is remarkably skilled in finding patterns in chaos.

Show at least two (two is coincidence, three or more is a pattern) more planetary systems (with at least half a dozen planets) that also fit the same a = x + y^k formula and you'll gain a lot of followers.

[Darnok]

One can't deny that the Bode's Law formula fits our solar system very nicely. But one also can't deny the fact the human mind is remarkably skilled in finding patterns in chaos.

Show at least two (two is coincidence, three or more is a pattern) more planetary systems (with at least half a dozen planets) that also fit the same a = x + y^k formula and you'll gain a lot of followers.

Chaos doesn't exist, it is just order that we don't understand or we didn't found natural pattern to describe it

Bode's Law is nice but like someone said it does predict only semi-major axis and nothing more.

Someone said he can find formulas for any number sequence, so please make formula for (all planets from table above):

- planets radius (in order they are in solar system and second from smallest radius to largest),

- axial tilt

- orbital inclination