Planet-X?

[Eveeloo]

I've heard about Planet-X, which means there's 10 planets in our solar system since Pluto is basically a planet again. There's just a few things that I am wondering about it, how can it orbit the sun?, because it's a few billion miles out there. What color is it? and why did we not know about it?...

Edited April 11, 2016 by KerbalSpace

[HoloYolo]

18 minutes ago, KerbalSpace said:

I've heard about Planet-X, which means there's 10 planets in our solar system since Pluto is basically a planet again. There's just a few things that I am wondering about it, how can it orbit the sun?, because it's a few billion miles out there. What color is it? and why did the Romans not know about it?...

Pluto, "the ninth planet" is 4 billion miles out. Hubble and many other telescopes have found things orbiting almost a LIGHT YEAR away from the Sun. The Sun's sphere of influence is quite big. Also, this should be in Science and Spaceflight. And, the Romans could barely see Uranus. They would've not seen "Planet X".

Edited April 10, 2016 by HoloYolo

[Tex]

Moved to Science & Spaceflight.

 

Also, the term "Planet X" has referred to several different theoretical astronomical bodies that are not entirely confirmed, one such use I remember was for the Mars-sized object that impacted Earth, giving the planet its tilt and single moon, as per the Giant Impact Theory. Also, where is your information regarding Pluto being "basically a planet again"? As far as I know, since 2003, Pluto has been classified as a dwarf planet.

[Steel]

33 minutes ago, KerbalSpace said:

I've heard about Planet-X, which means there's 10 planets in our solar system since Pluto is basically a planet again. There's just a few things that I am wondering about it, how can it orbit the sun?, because it's a few billion miles out there. What color is it? and why did we not know about it?...

So let's begin, Pluto is definitely not "basically a planet again", it's a dwarf planet and will stay that way unless the rules are amended again.

Secondly, Planet X is not 100% confirmed yet, it has never been observed and the evidence for it is not enough to call it a discovery yet.

Thirdly, as mentioned above, it can very easily orbit the Sun, because that is how orbital mechanics work.

Fourthly, since it's never been observed we don't know anything about it's composition except some guesses based on data and existing theory.

Finally, we did not know about it because there was nothing to indicate anything was there until very recently. Uranus is the furthest out any planet had been found by deliberate direct observation. Neptune was only discovered because it's gravitational influence allowed us to know where to point a telescope to see it. Also, before new horizons, one of the most detailed pictures of Pluto we had was this. Then bear in mind that planet X is several times further away from us than Pluto and you get some idea of why no-one knew it was there.

Edited April 10, 2016 by Steel

[Atlas2342]

12 minutes ago, Maximus97 said:

Also, where is your information regarding Pluto being "basically a planet again"? As far as I know, since 2003, Pluto has been classified as a dwarf planet.

I got a tad confused when KerbalSpace said that lol

[todofwar]

Yeah, I got excited when I heard there was the possibility of 9 planets again (this may be the inner troll in me but I vote we call it New Pluto if it gets confirmed, or anything whose abreviation would be HL3). But it will be a long time before we actually observe it and even longer if we want to send a probe to it. Maybe when our ability to track and model more objects that have orbits that far out improves we can narrow down our search but my understanding is that for now we have way too much sky to scour.

[Frida Space]

On 4/10/2016 at 1:42 PM, KerbalSpace said:

I've heard about Planet-X, which means there's 10 planets in our solar system since Pluto is basically a planet again. There's just a few things that I am wondering about it, how can it orbit the sun?, because it's a few billion miles out there. What color is it? and why did we not know about it?...

There are several problems with what you say. Some have already been posted, but here's my take on them:

1) Pluto is not a planet again. Just because we've discovered it's a beautiful, complex and maybe even dynamic world doesn't mean it gets its planet-status yet. And even before the flyby, no one thought it would get back its title just because we now know what it looks like up close. The current definition states, amongst other things, that a planet must have cleared it's orbit. While its not 100% unambiguous (see Trojan asteroids or orbit-crossing NEOs etc), I find it fair enough that Pluto isn't a planet anymore -- there are so many other similar bodies out there. I love Pluto, but no, it's not "basically a planet again", and I'm not sure where you read that.

2) "Planet Nine" has only been theorized up to now. Scientists have found tantalizing evidence of its gravitational perturbations amongst the TNO population. However, we haven't managed to see it so far, and it may very well not exist. A similar thing happened with Neptune: astronomers first calculated its existence and position via its perturbation on Uranus, and later on actually observed it. But the opposite story happened with Vulcan, a planet which astronomers hypothesized to explain Mercury's perihelion precession. However, it was later found no such planet existed, and a guy called Einstein explained the weird stuff going on with Mercury's orbit. So, historically, such claims can go either way: either the planet actually gets discovered, or we just find out something totally different was responsible for what we were observing.

3) The Sun's Hill sphere extends far beyond "Planet Nine" (if it even exists). According to calculations, Planet Nine would be some 665 AU from the Sun. The Oort Cloud, for instance, extends up to 200 000 AU from our star. The comets in the Oort cloud are somewhat loosely bound to the Sun, but even at those incredible distances (some 300 times further away than Planet Nine) the Sun's influence is still greater than any other star's.

I hope what I said is useful

Edited April 11, 2016 by Frida Space

[Eveeloo]

30 minutes ago, Frida Space said:

tThere are several problems with what you say. Some have already been posted, but here's my take on them:

1) Pluto is not a planet again. Just because we've discovered it's a beautiful, complex and maybe even dynamic world doesn't mean it gets its planet-status yet. And even before the flyby, no one thought it would get back its title just because we now know what it looks like up close. The current definition states, amongst other things, that a planet must have cleared it's orbit. While its not 100% unambiguous (see Trojan asteroids or orbit-crossing NEOs etc), I find it fair enough that Pluto isn't a planet anymore -- there are so many other similar bodies out there. I love Pluto, but no, it's not "basically a planet again", and I'm not sure where you read that.

2) "Planet Nine" has only been theorized up to now. Scientists have found tantalizing evidence of its gravitational perturbations amongst the TNO population. However, we haven't managed to see it so far, and it may very well not exist. A similar thing happened with Neptune: astronomers first calculated its existence and position via its perturbation on Uranus, and later on actually observed it. But the opposite story happened with Vulcan, a planet which astronomers hypothesized to explain Mercury's perihelion precession. However, it was later found no such planet existed, and a guy called Einstein explained the weird stuff going on with Mercury's orbit. So, historically, such claims can go either way: either the planet actually gets discovered, or we just find out something totally different was responsible for what we were observing.

3) The Sun's Hill sphere extends far beyond "Planet Nine" (if it even exists). According to calculations, Planet Nine would be some 665 AU from the Sun. The Oort Cloud, for instance, extends up to 200 000 AU from our star. The comets in the Oort cloud are somewhat loosely bound to the Sun, but even at those incredible distances (some 300 times further away than Planet Nine) the Sun's influence is still greater than any other star's.

I hope what I said is useful

Yes Pluto is 50% 50% each right now.

Edited April 11, 2016 by KerbalSpace

[Steel]

14 minutes ago, KerbalSpace said:

Yes Pluto is 50% 50% each right now.

What's your source on that?

[Frida Space]

1 hour ago, KerbalSpace said:

Yes Pluto is 50% 50% each right now.

Each of what? Pluto is 100% a dwarf planet.

[kerbiloid]

Is there any logic why after Windows 8 they released Windows X ?..

[insert_name]

29 minutes ago, KerbalSpace said:

Yes Pluto is 50% 50% each right now.

theres no % involved, it either clears its orbit or it doesnt

[Eveeloo]

Why are we talking about Pluto this topics about Planet-X

[Steel]

2 minutes ago, KerbalSpace said:

Why are we talking about Pluto this topics about Planet-X

Because you keep saying that Pluto is "basically a planet again" with no evidence to support it.

[Eveeloo]

Well, you say what you say I say what I say. What I'm saying is, why do you care what I'm saying and not what your saying?

[sevenperforce]

15 minutes ago, KerbalSpace said:

Well, you say what you say I say what I say. What I'm saying is, why do you care what I'm saying and not what your saying?

Trolling?

[Eveeloo]

3 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

Trolling?

??? what

[insert_name]

16 minutes ago, KerbalSpace said:

Well, you say what you say I say what I say. What I'm saying is, why do you care what I'm saying and not what your saying?

what?

1 minute ago, sevenperforce said:

Trolling?

judging by his location he probably doesn't speak English very well

[Eveeloo]

1 minute ago, insert_name said:

what?

judging by his location he probably doesn't speak English very well

I am English, but I live in spain. So that's a little offensive.

Edited April 11, 2016 by KerbalSpace

[sevenperforce]

1 minute ago, KerbalSpace said:

I am English, but I live in spain. So that's a little offensive.

Yes, your English is entirely fine; you just seemed like you were being intentionally difficult. I could be wrong...hence the questionmark. 

 

[insert_name]

2 minutes ago, KerbalSpace said:

I am English, but I live in spain. So that's a little offensive.

do you speak English often though?

[Eveeloo]

1 minute ago, insert_name said:

do you speak English often though?

Yes.

[Frida Space]

I'm not really sure what to make of this. All of your questions have been answered several times already in the posts above. Pluto is not a planet again, Planet Nine is still a hypothetical planet (just like Uranus and Vulcan were before being respectively confirmed and denied), the Sun's Hill sphere extends far beyond Planet Nine's computed orbit, hence why it orbits the sun.

Edited April 11, 2016 by Frida Space

[Kerbart]

2 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Is there any logic why after Windows 8 they released Windows X ?..

Off topic. But there's a good chunk of 32-bit software that checked for "invalid os" by looking if you were running "windows 9*". (95 or 98). Guess what? "Windows 9" matches that pattern.  So they fixed the name to prevent that software from refusing to run "on an old windows." Not sure if true or not, but I think it's a great story and it definitely sounds legit to me.

 

On the planetary subject: Pluto is a matter of definition. We know of other pluto-sized objects—some of them maybe even larger—that are “hiding” in the Oort cloud. Given the size of the Oort belt (I like “belt” more because it sounds less dense to me than cloud) I'd be shocked if there's not at least a dozen planet-sized objects hiding in there (unless the way our solar system was formed dictates that it can't). I mean it's big. Really, really big. And we're just starting to learn what's out there.

Edited April 11, 2016 by Kerbart

[kerbiloid]

Planets are just clouds of atoms, as the gas and dust are,
So, we can await that the matter distribution is more or less close to what we have, using the equations of statistical physics, which are usually a superposition of exponents and powers and look like an asymmetric bell with the right end on infinity,
If we put masses, densities, angular moments, total mechanical energy and other physical parameters onto a chart, we get several nice diagrams which look almost exactly like what we have for gas distribution in a gravity field, or gas distribution in a rotating cylinder, etc.
We can see that all these values are monotonely decreasing beyond the Neptune orbit. Any planet different from Kuiper sub-planets would be an anomaly, a fluctuation. We can't predict fluctuations (that's why they are fluctuations).
So, an Earth-sized planet would be an incident, while a pack of them - a miracle.
 

Edited April 11, 2016 by kerbiloid