planet X found

[dragon]

just another dwarf planet 83 AU out that's pretty far. Now we just need to build a high speed probe to go investigate.

For anyone holding out hope of Pluto being reinstated as a major planet, you should probably do as they say in the movie "Frozen" and "let it go."

But here's a new exciting find from the far reaches of our solar system: Astronomers have discovered a dwarf planet that's even farther away than Pluto -- so far, in fact, that its orbit reaches into a new edge of the solar system.

The dwarf planet's current name is 2012 VP113, and it is located in a "wasteland or badland of the solar system," said astronomer Chad Trujillo, head of adaptive optics at Gemini Observatory in Hawaii and co-discoverer of this object. His study was published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

"The big question is, how is this formed? How can you get an object out there?" he said. "We really don't know an answer to that yet."

This dwarf planet is unusual because of its orbit, Trujillo said. On its elliptical path, the closest it ever comes to the sun is still very far away from the rest of the solar system. Its full orbit is farther than the orbit of any other object we know of in the solar system.
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"Nothing that we currently know in the solar system can make objects that are so distant all the time, that never come close to any of the planets," Trujillo said.

The most distant major planet from the sun is Neptune, orbiting our star at a distance of 30 astronomical units. One astronomical unit is the average distance between the Earth and the sun -- about 150 million kilometers, or 93 million miles.

Beyond Neptune is the Kuiper Belt, a doughnut-shaped ring of small objects, which extends from about 30 to 55 AU, according to NASA. This belt may contain hundreds of thousands of large icy objects and trillions of comets, if not more. Pluto is considered a dwarf planet in the Kuiper Belt.

The awkwardly-named 2012 VP113 is much farther from the sun, at 83 astronomical units. That puts it at 83 times the distance between our own planet and the sun.

But in terms of average distance from the sun, there is a dwarf planet even farther out: Eris, which Trujillo helped discover. Eris is bigger than Pluto, and has a satellite called Dysnomia. The presence of Eris helped scientists determine that Pluto should not be counted among the major planets.

Sedna, a dwarf planet that Trujillo co-discovered as well in 2004, is located in the same distant area, and takes about 10,500 years to orbit the sun.

"Finding Sedna so far away seemed odd and potentially a fluke," said Mike Brown, professor of astronomy at California Institute of Technology, in an e-mail. "But this one is beginning to make it look like that might be a typical place for objects to be. Not at all what I would have guessed."

This home of Sedna and 2012 VP113 is called the "inner Oort Cloud." It may be where some comets come from, Trujillo said.

Trujillo's study also suggests that there could be a large planet that no one has seen, way out at 250 astronomical units, affecting the orbits of Sedna and the new dwarf planet. But this is only a theory; the planet has not been detected.

Brown, who was not involved in this study, also co-discovered Sedna.

"These unusual objects -- Sedna and this new one -- can tell us about very early in the solar system, when the sun and planets were just forming," Brown said.

Scientists have not been able to discern what 2012 VP113's composition is, but most would suspect it is icy because of its distance from the sun, Trujillo said. Its color is slightly reddish, and "not especially unusual compared to Kuiper Belt objects," Trujillo said.

Trujllio and colleagues estimate that the new dwarf planet is relatively small -- about 450 kilometers (280 miles) in diameter, which less than the driving distance from Philadelphia to Boston. It's probably ball-shaped, he said.

So why is this not a major planet such as Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars? Trujillo explains that a bona fide planet is big enough that other objects in its orbit will be sucked into it gravitationally. A dwarf planet is not big enough to become gravitationally dominant; it's too small to pull in objects in the area of its path.

It's possible that this dwarf planet formed very early in our solar system's history, in the region between Jupiter and Saturn, and then got thrown out beyond Pluto. One theory is that, billions of years ago, another star passed by our sun and took material with it out to a distant orbit.

As far as we know, it's too cold out where the dwarf planet is to have liquid water, Trujillo said.

"To me, what this discovery really shows is that we are on verge of finally being able to read the story that Sedna is trying to tell us, and that the next few years should bring a flood of new discoveries in this new region of the outer solar system," Brown said.

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[Purple]

I really don't understand why they just won't do the smart thing and declare Pluto AND all the other minor characters in our solar system planets. I'd rather have more than less.

[Borgholio]

I really don't understand why they just won't do the smart thing and declare Pluto AND all the other minor characters in our solar system planets. I'd rather have more than less.

You really want to have to count a couple hundred planets in the solar system instead of just 8?

[Tsyroc]

I was reading how Ceres used to be considered a planet and people seem to have gotten over that. It has been a long time.

How about Eris being a planet? It's 27% bigger than Pluto and was considered a planet for about a year.

[Borgholio]

How about Eris being a planet? It's 27% bigger than Pluto and was considered a planet for about a year.

In fact that's how they determined that Pluto is a member of the Kuiper Belt and not an actual planet. If they find more objects of a similar size, the number of planets can easily get out of hand.

[Purple]

I really don't understand why they just won't do the smart thing and declare Pluto AND all the other minor characters in our solar system planets. I'd rather have more than less.

You really want to have to count a couple hundred planets in the solar system instead of just 8?

Yes.
It would make me happy. And it would be a good way to bring home the facts about just how awesomely huge the universe really is.

[Borgholio]

I really don't understand why they just won't do the smart thing and declare Pluto AND all the other minor characters in our solar system planets. I'd rather have more than less.

You really want to have to count a couple hundred planets in the solar system instead of just 8?

Yes.
It would make me happy. And it would be a good way to bring home the facts about just how awesomely huge the universe really is.

Try this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot

And especially this:

[Zwinmar]

Heh, the effect of the sun's gravity well is getting bigger and bigger every day....or at least our understanding of it is.

[Terralthra]

I really don't understand why they just won't do the smart thing and declare Pluto AND all the other minor characters in our solar system planets. I'd rather have more than less.

If you declare Pluto a planet, there's really no logical reason that the moon, and by extension all moons, aren't planets either. There appears to be some useful distinction to make between planets and moons, and there isn't really a reasonable framework that lets Pluto be a planet and Luna (Ceres, Io, Ganymede, Europa, etc...), too.

[Purple]

I really don't understand why they just won't do the smart thing and declare Pluto AND all the other minor characters in our solar system planets. I'd rather have more than less.

If you declare Pluto a planet, there's really no logical reason that the moon, and by extension all moons, aren't planets either. There appears to be some useful distinction to make between planets and moons, and there isn't really a reasonable framework that lets Pluto be a planet and Luna (Ceres, Io, Ganymede, Europa, etc...), too.

What are you talking about? Last time I checked the distinction between planets and satellites was that the later circled around the former. It's kind of a parent-child relationship that has nothing to do with absolute size. If Jupiter was to have a moon larger than the Earth I would still call it a satellite because it circles around Jupiter.

[Borgholio]

If Jupiter was to have a moon larger than the Earth I would still call it a satellite because it circles around Jupiter.

Jupiter and Saturn both have moons bigger than Mercury.

[Beowulf]

If you declare Pluto a planet, there's really no logical reason that the moon, and by extension all moons, aren't planets either. There appears to be some useful distinction to make between planets and moons, and there isn't really a reasonable framework that lets Pluto be a planet and Luna (Ceres, Io, Ganymede, Europa, etc...), too.

What are you talking about? Last time I checked the distinction between planets and satellites was that the later circled around the former. It's kind of a parent-child relationship that has nothing to do with absolute size. If Jupiter was to have a moon larger than the Earth I would still call it a satellite because it circles around Jupiter.

The Pluto-Charon Barycenter lies outside the surface of Pluto. A strong argument could therefore be made that Charon does not in fact circle Pluto. Thus, Charon would be a planet as well.

[Kuroneko]

If you declare Pluto a planet, there's really no logical reason that the moon, and by extension all moons, aren't planets either.

The Moon is inside the Earth's Hill sphere (rel. to the Sun), but not vice versa, which is a good reason not to.

The Pluto-Charon Barycenter lies outside the surface of Pluto. A strong argument could therefore be made that Charon does not in fact circle Pluto. Thus, Charon would be a planet as well.

This seems to be a bad criterion in light of the fact that barycenter of the solar system is fairly frequently outside the surface of the Sun. On the other hand, Pluto and Charon are inside each others' Hill spheres, so it's natural to consider them a binary system at best.

[Terralthra]

What are you talking about? Last time I checked the distinction between planets and satellites was that the later circled around the former. It's kind of a parent-child relationship that has nothing to do with absolute size. If Jupiter was to have a moon larger than the Earth I would still call it a satellite because it circles around Jupiter.

Beowulf already responded effectively, but yes, essentially, Charon doesn't orbit Pluto. Charon and Pluto orbit a barycenter (common center of mass in an orbital system) within neither body. Without the barycenter lying within Pluto, the only way you can say that Pluto is a planet and Charon is a moon is by judging based on...size. Stop caring about size, and both Pluto and Charon are planets, as will be Luna in a few million years. Luna's gradually receding from Terra, and it won't take all that long in astronomical terms for the Luna/Terra barycenter to be outside Terra as well, leaving no choice but to call Luna a planet as well. Or, both Pluto and Charon are moons, as neither orbits Sol: each orbits a common center, which itself orbits Sol.

If you declare Pluto a planet, there's really no logical reason that the moon, and by extension all moons, aren't planets either.

The Moon is inside the Earth's Hill sphere (rel. to the Sun), but not vice versa, which is a good reason not to.

The Pluto-Charon Barycenter lies outside the surface of Pluto. A strong argument could therefore be made that Charon does not in fact circle Pluto. Thus, Charon would be a planet as well.

This seems to be a bad criterion in light of the fact that barycenter of the solar system is fairly frequently outside the surface of the Sun. On the other hand, Pluto and Charon are inside each others' Hill spheres, so it's natural to consider them a binary system at best.

Granted that the barycenter of the solar system is outside Sol, but taken as a two-body problem, the barycenter of any particular Sol/planet pair is rarely outside Sol. I think Jupiter is the only planet for which the Sol/Jupiter barycenter lies outside Sol?

[Kuroneko]

This seems to be a bad criterion in light of the fact that barycenter of the solar system is fairly frequently outside the surface of the Sun. On the other hand, Pluto and Charon are inside each others' Hill spheres, so it's natural to consider them a binary system at best.

Granted that the barycenter of the solar system is outside Sol, but taken as a two-body problem, the barycenter of any particular Sol/planet pair is rarely outside Sol. I think Jupiter is the only planet for which the Sol/Jupiter barycenter lies outside Sol?

I didn't check them individually. However, taking this criterion seriously also means if the Sun were an equivalently-massed white dwarf/neutron star/black hole, most (probably all) of the planets wouldn't orbit it even in the two-body case... despite having the same orbits as they would about the actual Sun. That is a rather silly conclusion to make.

[Eternal_Freedom]

The fact that the solar system barycentre is outside the Sun doesn't really matter since, well, the Sun is a freaking star, not merely a larger rocky/gaseous body like planets are to their moons.

I was taught that to be a "major" planet it had to have met 3 criteria:

1. Orbits the Sun.
2. Sufficiently massive to pull itself into a sphere.
3. Sufficiently massive to clear it's orbital paths of smaller debris.

Minor planets only meet the first two, hence why Pluto, Charon, Ceres and Sedna and so on are "minor" planet's, there's still a fuckload of debris in their orbits.

Incidentally, that brings to mind another possibility for how this new body arrived: it didn't form out there at all, it's just a captured object from elsewhere.

[Terralthra]

I didn't check them individually. However, taking this criterion seriously also means if the Sun were an equivalently-massed white dwarf/neutron star/black hole, most (probably all) of the planets wouldn't orbit it even in the two-body case... despite having the same orbits as they would about the actual Sun. That is a rather silly conclusion to make.

The fact that the solar system barycentre is outside the Sun doesn't really matter since, well, the Sun is a freaking star, not merely a larger rocky/gaseous body like planets are to their moons.

I was taught that to be a "major" planet it had to have met 3 criteria:

1. Orbits the Sun.
2. Sufficiently massive to pull itself into a sphere.
3. Sufficiently massive to clear it's orbital paths of smaller debris.

Minor planets only meet the first two, hence why Pluto, Charon, Ceres and Sedna and so on are "minor" planet's, there's still a fuckload of debris in their orbits.

Incidentally, that brings to mind another possibility for how this new body arrived: it didn't form out there at all, it's just a captured object from elsewhere.

I'm responding to these together, because I think there's a point shared between them. The reason we are trying to draw such a firm line about orbits and barycenters and so on is that there is no good distinction of composition between Charon and Pluto, or between Pluto and any number of ice/rock moons elsewhere in the solar system. All we have to go on is what orbits what else. The reason the barycenter of the Sol/Jupiter system would matter is that in this case, an argument can be made that Jupiter is not that far (astronomically speaking) from being a small brown dwarf mass-wise, rather than a large-ish gas giant. It has a similar metallicity and overall composition to main-sequence stars, it was just too low on mass. If it were an order of magnitude more massive, the solar system we live in could be reasonably termed a binary system of a brown dwarf and a main sequence star.

Kuroneko's point is well-taken in that we don't truly consider the barycenter of the solar system to be that important (for good reason, as he points out) because Sol differs substantially from all of the planets in kind, rather than in mere size or the relationship of orbits. However, were we in a binary system, which of the two massive objects orbits the other might become important in classifying our own solar system, and thus barycenters and Hill spheres of the respective entities might be relevant?

[Eternal_Freedom]

Perhaps. Whilst it is true that Jupiter is pretty much a too-small dwarf star, it and Sol have one major distinction; namely, Sol is actually fusing hydrogen and generating energy and Jupiter is not. So talking about similar compositions doesn't really matter when deciding whether we're in a single or a binary system.

[Purple]

Beowulf already responded effectively, but yes, essentially, Charon doesn't orbit Pluto. Charon and Pluto orbit a barycenter (common center of mass in an orbital system) within neither body.

In that case call them both planets.

Stop caring about size, and both Pluto and Charon are planets, as will be Luna in a few million years. Luna's gradually receding from Terra, and it won't take all that long in astronomical terms for the Luna/Terra barycenter to be outside Terra as well, leaving no choice but to call Luna a planet as well.

Fine by me. Call it a satellite now, and if in a few million years there are still astronomers around they can rename it to a planet. I really don't see the issue here.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Pluto and Charon are indeed both dwarf planets. Because they're out in the Kuiper Belt and haven't clear their orbits or debris.

[Purple]

Pluto and Charon are indeed both dwarf planets. Because they're out in the Kuiper Belt and haven't clear their orbits or debris.

But why not just regular planets? Why do astronomers have to make twenty billion categories that only serve to upset people like my self.

[Borgholio]

But why not just regular planets? Why do astronomers have to make twenty billion categories that only serve to upset people like my self.

Could be worse. They could categorize you as a DWARF purple cube...

[Eternal_Freedom]

Did you miss the "criteria for being a planet" list I posted? 1. Orbit the sun, 2. Be large enough to pull itself into a sphere and 3. clear it's orbit of debris.

These are just very large objects like Vesta or Pallas that orbit as part of a large cloud of random debris.

[Jub]

But why not just regular planets? Why do astronomers have to make twenty billion categories that only serve to upset people like my self.

Probably because scientists like nice useful classifications and if we just called everything a planet the term would become useless and they'd need to have sub classes of planets anyway. So instead as our understanding of the universe and our own solar system grows, we're going to see things get classified and reclassified many times. Besides, what difference does it make what we call them? Space doesn't change because we name things differently.

[Napoleon the Clown]

Pluto and Charon are indeed both dwarf planets. Because they're out in the Kuiper Belt and haven't clear their orbits or debris.

But why not just regular planets? Why do astronomers have to make twenty billion categories that only serve to upset people like my self.

It keeps the planet list from getting unmanageable and why the fuck should they care if people get all butthurt over what something is classified as? Do you get up in arms over dogs being generally treated as distinct from wolves, even though they're the same species. Dwarf planet is basically just to say "This is on the lower end of what can be a type of planet."

An analogy would be, as mentioned, taxonomy. There's subspecies, divisions within a species that show enough differences to have some distinction but not enough to say it isn't the same species. Let's not go into why species is a messy as hell classification as it is... The whole planet/dwarf planet thing is basically trying to avoid the problems biology faces when it's categorizing life forms.