In 2016 the Astronomical Journal published a paper by Konstantin Batygin and Michael E. Brown title
Evidence for a Distant Giant Planet in the Solar System. The paper can be found online here:
http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/0004-6256/151/2/22/meta
This was reported on by Newsweek
Planet Nine Evidence
Grows After Scientists Find Distant Object with Extraordinary Orbit
Aristos Georgiou
Newsweek16 May 2018
Two years ago, scientists from the California Institute of
Technology (Caltech) found evidence to suggest that a planet larger than Earth
could be hiding beyond the orbit of Pluto, in the furthest reaches of the Solar
System.
The researchers didn’t directly observe the hypothetical
ninth planet, but they did predict its existence based on the strange orbits of
a handful of distant, icy worlds in the Kuiper belt—a disc of primarily small
and rocky bodies that begins just past the orbit of Neptune—that were extremely
unlikely to have occurred by chance.
Since this discovery, scientists around the world have been
trying to uncover more evidence of Planet Nine. Now, an international team of
researchers has reported the discovery of another distant world, possibly a
dwarf planet, which has a bizarre orbit that it is likely being influenced by
the ninth planet, they say.
“It’s not proof that Planet Nine exists,” David Gerdes, from
the University of
Michigan and a co-author
of the new paper, told Quanta Magazine. “But I would say the presence of an
object like this in our solar system bolsters the case for Planet Nine.”
In a new paper, published on the online preprint server
arXiv.org, the team described how it uncovered the space object in 2014 using
data from the Dark Energy Survey—an international, collaborative effort
designed to map a vast region of the skies in order to reveal the nature of the
mysterious force that is accelerating the expansion of the universe.
The object, known as 2015 BP519, has an extraordinary orbit
that’s tilted 54 degrees in relation to the plane of most objects that orbit
the Sun. After discovering it, the team tried to investigate 2015 BP519’s
origins using computer simulations of the Solar System. However, these tests
were not able to adequately explain how the object had ended with such an orbit.
But when the team added a ninth planet with properties
exactly matching those predicted by the Caltech scientists in 2016, the orbit
of 2015 BP519 suddenly made sense.
“The second you put Planet Nine in the simulations, not only
can you form objects like this object, but you absolutely do,” Juliette Becker,
a Michigan graduate student and lead author of the study told Quanta.
*This is an illustration of the hypothetical Planet Nine
with its back toward the sun. The space object is thought to be gaseous,
similar to Uranus and Neptune. Speculative lightning illuminates the night
side. Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC)
Some researchers, however, caution that Planet Nine may not
be the only explanation for 2015 BP519’s strange orbit.
Michele Bannister, a planetary astronomer from Queen’s
University Belfast, in Ireland,
who was not involved in the study, told Newsweek that while the latest findings
were “a great discovery,” other scenarios could account for its tilt.
“This object is unusual because it’s on a high inclination,”
she said. “This can be used to maybe tell us some things about its formation
process. There are a number of models that suggest you can probably put objects
like this into the shape of orbit and the tilt of orbit that we see today.”
One way you can do this, according to Bannister, is to take
into account the fact that the early solar system probably contained 10,000
dwarf planets, in comparison to the 20 or so known examples that currently
exist—including Pluto. The gravitational influence of these thousands of dwarf
planets may have been sufficient to move 2015 BP519 into its orbit, for
example. Nevertheless, Bannister does not rule out the conclusions drawn by the
new study.
***************
And now more news
Scientists have found
a mysterious, distant object sitting at the edge of our solar system.
The discovery was made while researchers hunted for Planet
X, a hidden world that astronomers think is lying undiscovered in our own solar
system. Scientists have long thought and hoped that such a strange world is
lying in the dark at the edge of our neighbourhood, but no proof has yet been
discovered.
The new object appears to suggest that is the case: it has
an orbit that seems to suggest there is a Super-Earth wobbling it from afar.
"These distant objects are like breadcrumbs leading us
to Planet X," said Scott Sheppard, the Carnegie astronomer who helped lead
the research. "The more of them we can find, the better we can understand
the outer Solar System and the possible planet that we think is shaping their
orbits — a discovery that would redefine our knowledge of the Solar System's
evolution.
The researchers ran simulations of the orbit of the new
object, in an attempt to understand how it would be affected by the
hypothetical Planet X. They found that a mysterious planet of the kind
previously suggested — a huge Super-Earth on a very wide orbit — fit with the
way that their new find was moving through the solar system.
The newly discovered object is called 2015 TG387, is
probably a small dwarf planet at just 300km across, and is incredibly far away.
It is currently lying about two and a half times further away from the Sun than
Pluto is.
It often reaches much further away. Its orbit takes it to
about 2,300 AU — that is 2,300 times as far away from the sun as we are, and
vastly more than the already huge 34 AU that the distant Pluto sits at.
At that distance, 2015 TG387 is one of the few known objects
that is so far away that its orbit is not affected by even the giant planets in
our solar system like Neptune and Jupiter.
"These so-called Inner Oort Cloud objects like 2015
TG387, 2012 VP113, and Sedna are isolated from most of the Solar System's known
mass, which makes them immensely interesting," said Sheppard. "They
can be used as probes to understand what is happening at the edge of our Solar
System."
The object is one of the strangest things that astronomers
have ever spotted within our own solar system. But there could be many more of
them than we have ever realised, the researchers said.
"We think there could be thousands of small bodies like
2015 TG387 out on the Solar System's fringes, but their distance makes finding
them very difficult," said the University
of Hawaii's David Tholen.
"Currently we would only detect 2015 TG387 when it is near its closest
approach to the Sun. For some 99 percent of its 40,000-year orbit, it would be
too faint to see."
The new discovery is being announced by International
Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center. A paper with full details has been
submitted to the Astronomical Journal.
*****************************
I need to point out that none of the images are photographs but the imaginative work of artists. We have not "seen" either of the bodies mentioned.
You are probably wondering what this has to do with CE3K/AE reports -shouldn't this be a news item on the AOP blog? Well, when you think about it these discoveries -and those yet to be made because we concentrate more on Deep Space than Near Space- they have a great relevance. For decades the arguments have gone back-and-forth on how They get here (if They are getting here)?
Ufologists: "They may be getting here by travelling faster than light!"
Sceptic: "Nothing can travel faster than light!"
Ufologists: "They may be using worm-holes in space"
Sceptic: "That's theoretical not fact!"
It goes back-and-forth and as a new scientific theories pop up so ufologists grasp at them. They grasp at them not understanding that even the scientists can be at each others throats over them and neither faction wants the "loony-fringe" latching on to things. These days, of cource, after a number of Star Trek episodes and other TV shows and movies have used the Sun to get from A to B or where -ever by "sling-shot" "or whatever" the fringe has jumped on this almost to the point where I wondered how long before they were taken into protective care!
My post yesterday looked at our closest solar neighbours. And I point our, again, that we have absolutely no knowledge of any extraterrestrial technology therefore inter-stellar travel may be easy to them...or not. But suppose They are surveying other solar systems such as ours but do not want to make open contact -They might assume that by now all the reports of their meeting Earth-folk has established that we know they are around.
Put it this way; if you found an inhabited planet where the dominant species was ruining its environment, killing whatever it could including its own race en masse would you want to land and say "Hello"? We could go on for weeks looking at the theory but let's assume They are here and just surveying so we then get all of the "They are based on our Moon!" or "They are based on Mars!" -in fact they seem to be based everywhere but there is no firm evidence.
In CE3K reports it is clear that the objects seen are small and far too cramped for 3-5 entities on a long journey. We can theorize that they may not be human but robots of some kind; again, we can speculate for a long time but even the larger objects raise questions. A mother-ship in space? Well, with telescopes, space radar and various other tracking methods you are not going to be able to hide a huge mother-ship in near Earth orbit. Activity on the Moon or Mars will not escape notice either. Remember that asteroid Oumuamua and others are spotted more easily these days.
However, if you have dwarf planets -or larger ones when it comes to the hypothesised Planet X- you will have a suitable base to operate from and therefore smaller craft can move out through the solar system -I doubt Earth would be seen as the highest priority. On the outer edges of the solar system is also a good place to prepare for moving out beyond the Sol system.
Remember that from 1939 on the planet Pluto (I still call it a planet :-P ) was the furthest large body known and other than some space rocks that was it. Placing an astronomer from 1939 into 2018 would be like giving a neanderthal an Ipad. Things have advanced so far.
I have written this before now in articles and posts but we really need to start the whole SETI/CETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence/Communications with ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) programme to search much closer to our own system.
