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Related: About this forumThe mysterious ‘Planet Nine’ might be causing the whole solar system to wobble
Source: Washington Post
The mysterious Planet Nine might be causing the whole solar system to wobble
By Sarah Kaplan October 20 at 12:30 PM
Astronomers can't see Planet Nine. But it makes its presence known.
The massive hypothetical object, which supposedly looms at the edge of our solar system, has been invoked to explain the strange clustering of objects in the Kuiper belt and the unusual way they orbit the Sun.
Now Planet Nine predictors Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown of Caltech, along with graduate student Elizabeth Bailey, offer another piece of evidence for the elusive sphere's existence: It adds wobble to the solar system, they say, tilting it in relation to the sun.
Because Planet Nine is so massive and has an orbit tilted compared to the other planets, the solar system has no choice but to slowly twist out of alignment, lead author Bailey said in a statement.
Before we go any further, a caveat about Planet Nine: It's purely theoretical at this point. Batygin and Brown predict its existence based on unusual perturbations of the solar system that aren't otherwise easily explained. (This is the same technique scientists used to find Neptune.) But the history of astronomy is rife with speculation that is never borne out: The same guy who correctly predicted the existence of Neptune also believed that a planet he called Vulcan was responsible for the wobble of Mercury. That discovery caused the astronomy world to waste years looking for something that wasn't there. (Mercury's wobble was eventually explained by the theory of general relativity.)
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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2016/10/20/the-mysterious-planet-nine-might-be-causing-the-whole-solar-system-to-wobble/
TonyPDX
(962 posts)which is something else entirely:
nikto
(3,284 posts)But for 2 letters, "e" and "t"
Plan 9 and Planet 9 are the same.
Science is just so confusing.
(Sorry, just playing Conservative here)
stone space
(6,498 posts)longship
(40,416 posts)Jacob Bronowski said it rather wonderfully:
Every judgment in science stands on the edge of error and is personal. Science is a tribute to what we can know although we are fallible. In the end, the words were said by Oliver Cromwell: "I beseech you in the bowels of Christ: Think it possible you may be mistaken."
From the absolutely astounding BBC series, The Ascent of Man (later broadcast on PBS).
Towlie
(5,318 posts)and then go on to say that its presence is NOT known?
mysuzuki2
(3,521 posts)I thought it was just me ...
lastlib
(23,125 posts)..next time I get pulled over for a DUI?? .
"Nah, Offsher, it's not me--the whole frickin' Sholar Shystem's w-w-w-obbb-lin'......"
.
lastlib
(23,125 posts)packman
(16,296 posts)DAMMIT, that's going to be with me all day now.
If they ever find that "extra" planet, they gotta call it Weeble
Jim__
(14,057 posts)I can't access the article at the Post (I have no more access to free articles), so I'm not sure if this is a duplicate of something in that article.
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mopinko
(69,972 posts)find the wapo cookie and delete. no more limits.
Cresent City Kid
(1,621 posts)Trump will surely double down on xenophobia, "We going to build a great space wall, it will be the greatest space wall you've ever seen and we'll make the hombres from this Deep Space Nine pay for it!"
Nitram
(22,755 posts)They were practicing good science. Every hypothesis must be investigated to be proven true or false. That's the way science works.