Two New Planets?

[Newt]

It seems like often the nature of people on the internet to take small suggestions and add heaps of hype. I usually try to get most of my space news from NASA, or otherwise more directly from the source for that reason.

If this turns out to be the case, it is really interesting. Otherwise, we still have a fantastically large Solar System with a good deal to explore that we have hardly even started on. We have yet to orbit two major planets, yet to properly map many significant moons, yet to land on most of the bodies in the solar system....

It really is huge, the Solar System. This is just another example of how much there may still be to figure out.

[Camacha]

It seems like often the nature of people on the internet to take small suggestions and add heaps of hype.

This is how the press works and seems to have worked for a long, long time - possibly ever.

[problemecium]

I hope one of them finally officially gets named "Planet X".

[NFUN]

I feel sorry for the people that have to write books about the solar system XD

Why? Whenever they need to update them they can copy-paste 90% of what they've written and only change what is needed. Instant profit.

[LordFerret]

I wish people would distinguish between something being possible and something being a proven fact.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2011/02/14/no_theres_no_proof_of_a_giant_planet_in_the_outer_solar_system.html

I hardly rely on a 'bad astronomy' blog for information. The papers and research/theory in question are quite legitimate and valid...

"Flipping minor bodies: what comet 96P/Machholz 1 can tell us about the orbital evolution of extreme trans-Neptunian objects and the production of near-Earth objects on retrograde orbits" - http://arxiv.org/abs/1410.6307

"Extreme trans-Neptunian objects and the Kozai mechanism: signalling the presence of trans-Plutonian planets" - http://arxiv.org/abs/1406.0715

This is not new speculation, just additional data/theory being added to already existing research. I understand the view however, as my own sentiment when I posted this on Facebook also included a note to "Look out, here come all the Nibiru and Planet-X'ers again.".

[Voyager55]

Why is is it so hard to just make a definitive mass requirement to being a planet? Solves everything. If Object A weighs <X amount of kilograms it's a planet. If it weighs >X it's not.

[KerBlam]

Lonely space potatoes?

[Newt]

Why is is it so hard to just make a definitive mass requirement to being a planet? Solves everything. If Object A weighs <X amount of kilograms it's a planet. If it weighs >X it's not.

I see your point, and that would certainly clear up uncertainty, but ambiguity is not the only qualm many people have with the standing IAU definition.

Either way, this seems to bridge on a different topic from the hypothetical other solar system planets.

[Camacha]

Why is is it so hard to just make a definitive mass requirement to being a planet? Solves everything. If Object A weighs <X amount of kilograms it's a planet. If it weighs >X it's not.

Because that would divide objects in categories that say nothing about the object and things are weirdly lumped together or separated. But this thread is not about that, we have discussed this to infinity in other threads, no need to repeat everything here.