A soon-to-be published article in the April issue of Astronomical Journal (by Japanese researchers working out of Kobe University) declares that their computer models show that an Earth sized planet exists beyond the orbit of Pluto. The paper goes on to describe the theoretical make-up of this new satellite, and shows that by adding a "Planet X" to their calculations, a simulated solar system came out almost identical to the one we see today.
Readers of Dark Mission will recall that a 10th (and possibly 11th) planet are required by our Hyperdimensional Physics model. We view this as a potential confirmation of the accuracy of our model.
You can read about the new paper here.
Ever since the discovery of planets larger than Pluto orbiting well beyond Pluto's orbit, there's been speculation on if there are even more small to medium-sized planets out in the Kuiper Belt. This paper is essentially an extension of that thinking.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised that RCH has NOT considered the idea of a brown dwarf twin to our Sun orbiting out there that may have a strong enough gravitational pull to affect Oort Cloud objects and send a large number of large comets into the inner Solar System in cycles measuring tens of millions of years. With more advanced space telescopes going up in the next 20 years--including the James E. Webb infrared telescope going up around 2011-2012 time frame--we might just find this nearby brown dwarf.
Maybe the Oort Cloud should be renamed the "Oops Cloud"....
ReplyDelete(As in, "Oops! There's ANOTHER new planet!")
(Kind of like a sort of "celestial Britney Spears,"
if you will.)
Or to couch things in more Reaganesque terms:
"Okay everybody, let's Win One For The Kuiper!"
(Sorry, Mike...I just couldn't resist....)
:-))
P.S.: What ever happened to those studies of the
net angular momentum of the solar system that I
was seeing everywhere a few years back?
Is everybody still scratching their heads over
that?