Another major discovery: Solar System's Edge Redefined

Got a tip-off on Facebook from an amateur astronomer:

A 2nd Sedna has been discovered. Its closest approach to the Sun is 80AU. With an absolute magnitude of 4.1, it is large enough to be a strong dwarf planet candidate.
ssd.jpl.nasa.gov...

Google brough up only this "Print-ready" article, so it seems it's still awaiting publication and being made known: www.astrobio.net...

Here's a snippet:

The solar system has a new most-distant member, bringing its outer frontier into focus.

New work from Carnegie’s Scott Sheppard and Chadwick Trujillo of the Gemini Observatory reports the discovery of a distant dwarf planet, called 2012 VP113, which was found beyond the known edge of the solar system. This is likely one of thousands of distant objects that are thought to form the so-called inner Oort cloud. What’s more, their work indicates the potential presence of an enormous planet, perhaps up to 10 times the size of Earth, not yet seen, but possibly influencing the orbit of 2012 VP113, as well as other inner Oort cloud objects.

Their findings are published March 27 in Nature.

This is even cooler than the asteroid rings discovered by Brazilian astronomers!

[Edit] Wikipedia article has appeared: en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by wildespace


OH MY Gosh. could it be...



PLANET X?

Congratulations to all you Nibiru folks.
You might just get vindicated.

reply to post by wildespace


Is this that big announcement that ESA was going to release today?

reply to post by wildespace

I enjoyed the article--a great find. S&F It's exciting to wonder what else we'll find.

Illustration of the “Oort Cloud,” a vast region of comets thought to extend a light year beyond our Sun. Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Donald K. Yeoman

From Wildespace's source: www.astrobio.net...

snypwsd
reply to post by wildespace

 

Is this that big announcement that ESA was going to release today?

No, this is a different one. The ESA one (according to a leaked article) is about an asteroid having rings.

wildespace

snypwsd
reply to post by wildespace

 

Is this that big announcement that ESA was going to release today?

No, this is a different one. The ESA one (according to a leaked article) is about an asteroid having rings.

Just thought i'd say, i really like your avatar
Also its amazing that we keep discovering new things out there in the black

reply to post by wildespace


I wait this...

What’s more, their work indicates the potential presence of an enormous planet, perhaps up to 10 times the size of Earth, not yet seen, but possibly influencing the orbit of 2012 VP113, as well as other inner Oort cloud objects.

Interesting article, wildespace.
S&f.

reply to post by wildespace


Now that right there is what you might call news!

Orbit comparison between this asteroid and its "sister" Sedna (orbit have been oriented to match each other; in reality, they point in different directions):


Although Sedna goes out much farther away from the Sun than VP113 (937 AU for Sedna vs. 446 AU for VP113), at the closest approach to the Sun, VP113 is further away than Sedna, which is why I guess it was named the most distant known object in the Solar System.

Interesting fact: the Kuiper belt extends only to about 50 AU, which means that all of Kuiper belt fits between the orbit of Pluto and the closest approach of Sedna or VP113! Here's the same image with the Kuiper belt shown as a dark red circle:

Arken
reply to post by wildespace

 

I wait this...

What’s more, their work indicates the potential presence of an enormous planet, perhaps up to 10 times the size of Earth, not yet seen, but possibly influencing the orbit of 2012 VP113, as well as other inner Oort cloud objects.

Interesting article, wildespace.
S&f.

Calm down Arken!
They have speculated on a super earth many times as well as Nemesis, this is some more evidence to add to that, but again not direct evidence and confirmation!

Meanwhile OP I feel like I need to change my Avatar to Neil deGrasse Tyson to feel special!

solarsystem.nasa.gov...
Some pictures of 2012 VP113

home.dtm.ciw.edu...
with a animated gif.

S&F.. nice one,
bookmark for later
sorry i couldn't add them to my post.

abeverage
Meanwhile OP I feel like I need to change my Avatar to Neil deGrasse Tyson to feel special!

Haha, he's a legend!

Meanwhile, an article from NASA:www.nasa.gov...
And another source: www.davidreneke.com...

abeverage

Arken
reply to post by wildespace

 

I wait this...

What’s more, their work indicates the potential presence of an enormous planet, perhaps up to 10 times the size of Earth, not yet seen, but possibly influencing the orbit of 2012 VP113, as well as other inner Oort cloud objects.

Interesting article, wildespace.
S&f.

Calm down Arken!
They have speculated on a super earth many times as well as Nemesis, this is some more evidence to add to that, but again not direct evidence and confirmation!

edit on 26-3-2014 by abeverage because: of another Tyson knockout!

I have patience....
But step by step.... they go right in that direction.

grey580
reply to post by wildespace

 

OH MY Gosh. could it be...

PLANET X?

Congratulations to all you Nibiru folks.
You might just get vindicated.

Finding a "Planet X" would not necessarily be the same as finding Nibiru.

Planet X may exist, but it may also never come anywhere near the inner solar system (as the alleged Nibiru is supposed to do). If there is a "Planet X" out there, it has been out there (basically out of sight/out of mind) for 4.5 billion years doing its own thing. The discovery/knowledge of a super-sized planet or a "Nemesis" Brown Dwarf would not suddenly change our existence.

Mainstream astronomy does NOT rule out the existence of a large planetary body beyond Pluto, and in fact mainstream astronomy is of the belief that many Pluto-sized, Eris-sized, and Sedna-sized bodies exist out there.

That was the main reason for demoting Pluto in the first place. It had become apparent 10 years ago that there are probably too many Pluto-like objects out there to count them all as planets.

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People


Exactly. Phage usually puts up a video which shows how if a large planet or brown dwarf had entered the presently known solar system even once it would have thrown the planets all out of whack and changed the fairly circular orbits into very different and devastating orbits. So if this is a new planet, it circles in its own orbit and will not pose any danger to the others - if it did it would have done so in the past.

Soylent Green Is People

grey580
reply to post by wildespace

 

OH MY Gosh. could it be...

PLANET X?

Congratulations to all you Nibiru folks.
You might just get vindicated.

Finding a "Planet X" would not necessarily be the same as finding Nibiru.

Planet X may exist, but it may also never come anywhere near the inner solar system (as the alleged Nibiru is supposed to do). If there is a "Planet X" out there, it has been out there (basically out of sight/out of mind) for 4.5 billion years doing its own thing. The discovery/knowledge of a super-sized planet or a "Nemesis" Brown Dwarf would not suddenly change our existence.

Mainstream astronomy does NOT rule out the existence of a large planetary body beyond Pluto, and in fact mainstream astronomy is of the belief that many Pluto-sized, Eris-sized, and Sedna-sized bodies exist out there.

That was the main reason for demoting Pluto in the first place. It had become apparent 10 years ago that there are probably too many Pluto-like objects out there to count them all as planets.

edit on 3/26/2014 by Soylent Green Is People because: (no reason given)

you don't know this... nibiru could be undetectable... until it's too late muahaha

Why is this planet / object called 2012 VP113 when it is 2014? Just who has been sitting on this information for two years and why?

kwakakev
Why is this planet / object called 2012 VP113 when it is 2014? Just who has been sitting on this information for two years and why?

It was discovered in 2012, yes. I guess they needed all that time to observe its movement in order to calculate its trajectory, as well as perform other measurements. It does seem like a long time for such an anouncement! I guess it took so long because the planetoid is moving very slowly so far out from the Sun.

kwakakev
Why is this planet / object called 2012 VP113 when it is 2014? Just who has been sitting on this information for two years and why?

The way science works is that you usually confirm a discovery before publishing. The confirmation process sometimes takes a while, especially for astronomical discoveries that require the passage of time to detect.

Another example in the astronomical world would be exoplanets that they THINK may exist, but considering how those exoplanets are found, the confirmation of that original discovery could take. That's because many exoplanets are discovered by noticing the dip in the light of a star as the exoplanet passes in front of that star. However, one way to to confirm that dip was really a planet, and to deduce the amount of time that planet takes to orbit, is to wait until that planet passes in front of the star again. For planets orbiting close to a star, that may not be a long time. For planets orbiting far from a star, that may take a while.

kwakakev
Why is this planet / object called 2012 VP113 when it is 2014? Just who has been sitting on this information for two years and why?

When an object is first discovered it is given a designation. Then they eliminate all possible candidates for any confusion or mistaken identity. Further observations are made along with predictions of an orbit which can take months getting time to equipment. After they have good idea what they are dealing with then an announcement is made. No one has been "sitting" on this.