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Planet Nine has a Mass ≥10 M⊕ (est.)


lost_shaman

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This hypothetical Planet is going to be large if it exists. It's likely going to have an Atmosphere, though very cold. 

My question two fold is what should we expect? What should we be looking for?

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Ok. No one is biting!

I'm interested in the fact that "we" the general public should know where to point our Telescopes to look for this object by now and I'm not sure that the case.

I think Rat's may be racing. 

 

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What on EARTH are you talking about lost_shaman ?

What is the 9th planet ?

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2 hours ago, lost_shaman said:

Ok. No one is biting!

I'm interested in the fact that "we" the general public should know where to point our Telescopes to look for this object by now and I'm not sure that the case.

I think Rat's may be racing. 

 

"We" the general public can point our telescopes anywhere we please because at the distance planet nine is expected to orbit only the world's largest professional telescopes have any chance of seeing it.

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3 hours ago, RoofGardener said:

What on EARTH are you talking about lost_shaman ?

What is the 9th planet ?

He's talking about the hypothetical Planet Nine, which it is postulated orbits at the outer edge of the Kuiper Belt. This part of what he is saying makes sense.

This hypothetical planet would explain the weird orbits of several trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs).

When he strays into the pseudo-conspiracy theory "they are telling us stuff", nonsense he abruptly stops making sense.

If this planet exists then there are a wide variety of orbital parameters it could follow. What's more it could be at any point in it's orbit. As such astronomers don't know exactly where to look as they don't know exactly where it will be.

As more TNOs with orbits perturbed by planet nine are discovered it will be possible to reduce the uncertainty in where it lies. Meanwhile observatories will continue to look for it.

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9 hours ago, Waspie_Dwarf said:

When he strays into the pseudo-conspiracy theory "they are telling us stuff", nonsense he abruptly stops making sense.

Where did I stumble into "pseudo-conspiracy theory "they are telling us stuff", nonsense"? I never said anything like that! 

I simply assume that if I'm interested in where this Planet may be orbiting then others may be too and we could discuss this on UM. (?) I brought this up because in a recent article a Caltech Astronomer was saying that there are at least 5 known gravitational anomalies that a "Planet 9" explains and that it would actually be more mysterious if it does not exist because you have to come up with 5 separate explanations for these anomalies. That itself is interesting.

Quote

“There are now five different lines of observational evidence pointing to the existence of Planet Nine,” Konstantin Batygin, a Caltech planetary astrophysicist, explains. “If you were to remove this explanation and imagine Planet Nine does not exist, then you generate more problems than you solve. All of a sudden, you have five different puzzles, and you must come up with five different theories to explain them.”

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6964

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2017/10/18/nasa-says-evidence-for-planet-nine-is-mounting.html

However, if these observations are mounting and this "Planet 9" explains them to the point that it's Mass can be pinned down relatively speaking then that must also constrict where it must be too! 

Also I was thinking that at around 10 Earth Masses such a Planet would retain a significant atmosphere. That should mean a high possibility for lightning. I imagine that lightning in the Kuiper belt is pretty rare, could this be a viable way to detect this Planet? 

Lightning detection in planetary atmospheres

 

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8 hours ago, lost_shaman said:

Where did I stumble into "pseudo-conspiracy theory "they are telling us stuff", nonsense"? I never said anything like that!

You never do say stuff like that, youm just imply so that you can later deny those implications, howver your intent seems clear:

22 hours ago, lost_shaman said:

Ok. No one is biting!

I'm interested in the fact that "we" the general public should know where to point our Telescopes to look for this object by now and I'm not sure that the case.

I think Rat's may be racing. 

 

What else could you possibly mean with the phrase I have highlighted.

Edited by Waspie_Dwarf
typo.
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8 hours ago, lost_shaman said:

Also I was thinking that at around 10 Earth Masses such a Planet would retain a significant atmosphere. That should mean a high possibility for lightning. I imagine that lightning in the Kuiper belt is pretty rare, could this be a viable way to detect this Planet? 

Lightning detection in planetary atmospheres

 

Try researching "inverse square law". This is likely to be an ice giant planet like Uranus and Neptune They both have substantial atmospheres., but at 10 times the distance from the sun it will receive only 1% the sunlight that Neptune does. It will be well beyond the range of amateur telescopes.

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13 hours ago, Waspie_Dwarf said:

You never do say stuff like that, youm just imply so that you can later deny those implications, howver your intent seems clear:

Oh good grief! You're my personal psychiatrist now?

 

13 hours ago, Waspie_Dwarf said:

What else could you possibly mean with the phrase I have highlighted.

I certainly didn't mean what you seem to think. The details of the search haven't really been reported that well. Is it because of competition between the different teams and people who are looking for it? Maybe there is or maybe there is not, but I certainly didn't mean to invoke tinfoil hat conspiracy theories with that! 

Anyway, I found this site... http://www.findplanetnine.com/p/blog-page.htm which answered several of my questions.

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15 hours ago, Waspie_Dwarf said:

Try researching "inverse square law". This is likely to be an ice giant planet like Uranus and Neptune They both have substantial atmospheres., but at 10 times the distance from the sun it will receive only 1% the sunlight that Neptune does. It will be well beyond the range of amateur telescopes.

If you look at the link I posted above they say differently if the Planet was near perihelion.

 

Quote

 

Observational limits on the presence of Planet Nine 

At its closest approach to the sun, Planet Nine is not particularly faint. Many high end back yard telescopes would have the capability of seeing it. More importantly, many rigorous astronomical surveys would likely already have detected. We think, therefore, that Planet Nine is not at its closest (with the usual caveat that the Milky Way galaxy makes things difficult). The strongest observational limits come, we think, from the following surveys (if you know of another survey that covers the right region of sky to the right cadence, please let us know!):

 

 
 
So they believe it is near aphelion and dimmer at around 22nd magnitude or so right now. So maybe it's out of reach at this point in it's orbit, but it wouldn't always be. I'm not sure that some amateurs can't search for objects that dim.

 

 
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