Global Warming on Sedna?

Sedna is a planetoid in the far far reaches of our solar system discovered in 2003. It is so far away from our Sun that, from Sedna, you could block out our Sun using a pinhead.

Mysterious Sedna

"The sun appears so small from that distance that you could completely block it out with the head of a pin," said Dr. Mike Brown, California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Pasadena, Calif., associate professor of planetary astronomy and leader of the research team.

Currently, Sedna, in its' 10,000 to 12,000 year or so orbit is nearing its' closest approach to us and, because of this, has warmed up to around -400 degrees F.

Sedna is extremely far from the sun, in the coldest known region of our solar system, where temperatures never rise above minus 240 degrees Celsius (minus 400 degrees Fahrenheit). The planetoid is usually even colder, because it approaches the sun only briefly during its 10,500- year solar orbit.

Sedna will come closer to Earth in the years ahead, but even at closest approach, about 72 years from now, Sedna is very far away--farther than Pluto. Then it will begin its 10,500-year trip back to the far reaches of the solar system. "The last time Sedna was this close to the sun, Earth was just coming out of the last ice age.

So if Sedna can warm because of a pinhead star in its' sky, I'm wondering about us. Could we be warming because of perihelion to a pinhead in the sky?

Would this pinhead, to a discerning eye, appear more blue than other stars?

Doppler Effect

Since blue is at the high-frequency end of the visible spectrum, we say the light from an approaching star is shifted toward blue, or blueshifted.

Likewise, if a star is zooming away from you, any light it emits gets stretched. You see these stretched-out light waves as having a lower frequency. Since red is at the low-frequency end of the visible spectrum, we say that light from a receding star is shifted toward red, or redshifted.

Light emitted from galaxies moving toward you would be squished, making the wavelength shorter and the light bluer. On earth, we perceive the light from galaxies moving away from us (as it appears almost all galaxies are) . . . . as being somewhat stretched, with longer wavelengths that make it look redder.

The amount of the shift depends on the speed of the star, relative to you. For a moving object to create an appreciable redshift or blueshift requires some pretty serious speeds. To get just a 1% change in the frequency of light, a star has to be moving 1,864 miles per second. For a blue lightbulb to look red, it would have to be flying away from you at 3/4 of the speed of light.

Or would special instruments be needed to observe a change in light spectrum over a lengthy period of time?

Sedna isn't warming up a lot. Various sources place its' coldest temperature (when furthest from the pinhead) at -420 to -440 degrees F. And given an 11,400 year orbit, it would mean that this, say, 20 degrees of warming would take place over 5700 years @ something like a degree every 285 years. The warming probably speeds up as it gets closer though so the beginning of the warming would be much much slower than that.

Anyway, 11,400 years ago when Sedna was last at closest approach, the earth started to warm up. I'm not talking about the recent accelerated warming due to man-made pollutions but rather about the fact that 11,300 years ago an ice age ended and hasn't returned.

The Ice Age 12,000 - 8,000 BC

From that point, temperatures gradually rose.

Global temperatures are close to 11,000 - year peak

After the ice age, they found, global average temperatures rose until they reached a plateau between 7550 and 3550 bc. Then a long-term cooling trend set in, reaching its lowest temperature extreme between ad 1450 and 1850.

So, similar to Sedna with its' apparent cycle of 5700 years of warming and 5700 years of cooling due to a pinpoint in the sky, the earth, if you take out anthropogenic, seems to have wanted to go in a cycle of sorts in the short term.

There's an ice age that lasts 4,000 years and then ends and the earth warms for 4,500 years and then starts to cool again for 4,500 years when it starts to warm again only this time it's serious warming because the anthropogenic factor has majorly aggravated and escalated it towards a coming runaway greenhouse event.

So could a pinhead in the sky be responsible for as much as a 20 degree global change in our temperature, up or down, every 4,500 years or so?

Well, by that logic, if a pin prick of light so far away could cause a change.

Imagine what we could do directly.

reply to post by luxordelphi


so i wonder if the government of Sedna is gonna try to tax the hell out of their populace just like they're trying to do here

Maybe AlGore should investigate this Sedna thing... sounds like it could explain our "warming". Can we send him there?

Pluto is a planetoid/dwarf planet in our solar system much closer to us than Sedna but still very very far away. From Pluto our Sun looks like a bright star.

What would the Sun look like from Pluto?

Since Pluto is so far away from the Sun (at a average distance of 3,670,050,000 miles), the Sun would look much dimmer and smaller that it does from here on Earth. From Pluto, the Sun would look like a very bright star and would light up Pluto during the day about as much as the full Moon lights up Earth at night.

Pluto was discovered in 1930 - quite a bit earlier than Sedna's discovery in 2003. While Sedna has an orbit of 11,400 years, Pluto's orbit is only 248 years. Pluto has been studied quite a bit longer than Sedna but, even so, it has been studied for less than half of its' 248 year orbit.

Pluto has an elongated (oval) orbit - not nearly as elongated as Sedna's but oval enough to where, at times, it comes closer to the Sun than Neptune (the next planet in from the solar system hinterland regions).

Pluto is currently moving away from the Sun and in 1999 passed Neptune on it's way back out to way out there.

Pluto, the Ninth Planet That Was a Dwarf

Pluto's highly elliptical orbit can take it more than 49 times as far out from the sun as Earth. It actually gets closer to the sun than Neptune for 20 years out of Pluto's 248-Earth-years-long orbit, providing astronomers a rare chance to study this small, cold, distant world. So after 20 years as the 8th planet (in order going out from the sun), in 1999, Pluto crossed Neptune's orbit to become the farthest planet from the sun (until it was demoted to the status of dwarf planet).

Sedna had some problems in its' past but Pluto had serious issues. The result of this history is that Pluto orbits on its' side and rotates east to west.

Compared with most of solar system's planets and moons, the Pluto-Charon system is tipped on its side in relation to the sun. Also, Pluto's rotation is retrograde compared to the other worlds — it spins backwards, from east to west.

As Pluto comes to closest approach with the Sun, it develops an atmosphere and warms up.

Pluto's orbit is highly eccentric, or far from circular, which means its distance from the sun can vary considerably and at times, Pluto’s orbit will take within the orbit of the planet Neptune. When Pluto is closer to the sun, its surface ices thaw and temporarily form a thin atmosphere, mostly of nitrogen, with some methane.

As Pluto moves back out away from the Sun, it should be cooling down and losing its' atmosphere but this is not what is currently happening.

Pluto's Atmosphere Boasts Methane, Warmer temps

As Pluto moves away from the Sun, during its 248 year-long orbit, its atmosphere gradually freezes and falls to the ground. In periods when it is closer to the Sun — as it is now — the temperature of Pluto’s solid surface increases, causing the ice to sublimate into gas.

Pluto reached closest approach to the Sun in 1989. In 2002, when this story came out, 13 years later, it seemed to be warming up even as it moved further and further from the sun.

Global Warming on Pluto Puzzles Scientists

In what is largely a reversal of an August announcement, astronomers today said Pluto is undergoing global warming in its thin atmosphere even as it moves farther from the Sun on its long, odd-shaped orbit.

The above linked article also gives an idea of how very difficult it is to study the atmosphere of an object as far away as Pluto. There were three instances in which data was gathered. In these instances Pluto passed in front of (occulted) a star. Studies from an instance in 1988 (a time when Pluto was closest to perihelion) were used as a comparison to two later times when Pluto also occulted a star.

The first occultation, in July, yielded limited data because of terrestrial cloud cover above key telescopes. Marc Buie, an astronomer at Lowell Observatory, scrambled to observe the event from northern Chile using portable 14-inch (0.35-meter) telescope. Afterward, Buie said he was baffled by what seemed to be global cooling of Pluto's atmosphere punctuated by some surface warming.

Then on Aug. 20, Pluto passed in front of a different star. The latter event provided much better data captured by eight large telescopes and seems to clarify and mostly reverse the earlier findings. ...astronomers today said Pluto is undergoing global warming in its thin atmosphere even as it moves farther from the Sun...

So global warming seems to be contentious no matter what planet/planetoid you find yourself on.

Since 2002, there have been a number of possible reasons for this anomalous warming brought forward: seasonal/hemispheric (like our hemispheres on earth where one is in summer while the other has winter), continued warming like 3pm being the hottest part of the day rather than noon even though the sun is closer, volcanoes, lots and lots of methane.

So I have another reason to tentatively add for Pluto warming up, based on the previous pinpoint effected warming of Sedna. What if, as Pluto moves away from the bright star in the sky (our Sun), it moves toward a pinpoint of light in its' sky that keeps it warming up?

Global warming is complicated, even on other planets/planetoids. Do you think another pinpoint of light in Pluto's sky could be causing it to warm up when it should be cooling down?

If the Earth were closer to the Sun that it was, say, 200 years ago, then yes, the planet would warm. This does not, of course, mean that human activity cannot also cause warming. And in any case, the Earth isn't any closer to the Sun than it was 200 years ago, although with declining axial tilt, the amount of solar radiation reaching polar regions is declining, so if anything the Earth should be cooling (as it has been for the past 4-5,000 years - the Neoglacial)

reply to post by AndyMayhew


The article in the OP:

Global temperatures areclose to 11,000-year peak

States, essentially, that when the ice age ended, temperatures rose. Then they fell and now they are rising again. The ice age (12,000 BC to 8,000 BC) ended and temperatures rose, peaking between 7550 BC and 3550 BC.

After the ice age, they found, global average temperatures rose until they reached a plateau between 7550 and 3550 bc.

Then, temperatures fell, reaching a low point between 1450 AD and 1850 AD.

Then a long-term cooling trend set in, reaching its lowest temperature extreme between ad 1450 and 1850.

From that time to now:

Since then, temperatures have been increasing at a dramatic clip: from the first decade of the twentieth century to now, global average temperatures rose from near their coldest point since the ice age to nearly their warmest, Marcott and his team report today in Science1.

So I was saying that there seems to be an underlying kind of warming and cooling going on including the last ice age which predates anthropological contributions.

12,000 BC to 8,000 BC: ice age...cooling...4,000 years

8,000 BC to 3550 BC: warming...4,500 years

3550 BC to 1850 AD: cooling...5,400 years

1850 AD to present: accelerated warming...164 years

Sedna warms and cools 20 degrees or so over a period of 11,400 years due to a star in its' sky no bigger than a pinhead. It spends half its' orbit warming up and the other half cooling down. The bulk of its' warm-up probably happens very near to perihelion. Sedna's orbit can be seen in the 2nd graphic at this link:

90377 Sedna

Pluto's orbit is not nearly as eccentric as Sedna's but is still very elongated as can be seen here:

Pluto is no longer a planet

Pluto's temperature has been thought to range from -400 degrees F to -360 degrees F. This warming and cooling of 40 degrees or so is caused by approaching and receding from what looks like a bright star in its' sky.

Temperature of Pluto

With such a large distance from the Sun, Pluto is incredibly cold. But this temperature can vary enough to change the dwarf planet significantly. At its closest point, it warms up enough so that Pluto’s nitrogen atmosphere sublimates and forms a diffuse cloud around it. As Pluto gets further away from the Sun; however its this atmosphere freezes out, and falls to the surface of Pluto like snow.

The surface of Pluto, in comparison, can range from a low temperature of 33 Kelvin (-240 degrees Celsius or -400 degrees Fahrenheit) and 55 Kelvin (-218 degrees Celsius or -360 degrees Fahrenheit). The average surface temperature on Pluto is 44 Kelvin (-229 Celsius or -380 Fahrenheit).

Global warming on Pluto, though, is slightly more complicated than just 40 degrees because it involves methane and so, actually, can become the mother of all ice ages.

The lower atmosphere of Pluto revealed

Using ESO's Very Large Telescope, astronomers have gained valuable new insights about the atmosphere of the dwarf planet Pluto. The scientists found unexpectedly large amounts of methane in the atmosphere, and also discovered that the atmosphere is hotter than the surface by about 40 degrees, although it still only reaches a frigid minus 180 degrees Celsius. These properties of Pluto's atmosphere may be due to the presence of pure methane patches or of a methane-rich layer covering the dwarf planet's surface.

From the link you put up:

Milankovitch cycles...Axial tilt (obliquity)

Currently the Earth is tilted at 23.44 degrees from its orbital plane, roughly halfway between its extreme values. The tilt is in the decreasing phase of its cycle, and will reach its minimum value around the year 11,800 CE ; the last maximum was reached in 8,700 BCE. This trend in forcing, by itself, tends to make winters warmer and summers colder (i.e. milder seasons), as well as cause an overall cooling trend.

Since this (milder seasons) is not what is happening, perhaps we should look elsewhere.

And because bright stars and even pinhead size stars seem to be able to exert considerable climate influence on Sedna and Pluto, I thought we might look to a bright star or even a pinhead size star in our own sky as a contributor to our own current global warming situation.

Some more evidence, recently in the news, for the power of pinhead warming as opposed to in your face:

Mercury is a strange little planet that is closer to the Sun than any other planet/planetoid in our system. And it's cooling. It is located in the very innermost part of our solar system and so pretty far from any pin points of light.

Solar System's Smallest Planet Is Shrinking

Mercury is getting smaller. Over its roughly 4.5 billion years of existence, the dense little planet’s diameter could have shrunk by as much as 14 kilometers, a study published today in Nature Geoscience reports.

But Mercury isn’t shrinking because of water loss. It’s getting smaller because its enormous metallic core is cooling and contracting.

So that's a weird one...Pluto, very very far away from the Sun and right now moving even further away, is warming. Mercury, right up next to the Sun, is cooling.

reply to post by luxordelphi


Well the Earth is also cooling, if you put it like that!

That Mercury's core has cooled over the past 4,500,000,000 years has nothing to do with insolation.

btw comets also get warmer as they approach the Sun! Ergo human activity cannot cause global warming ......

(Seriously, I'm not sure where you're going with this thread?)

reply to post by AndyMayhew


And the Sun is also cooling, apparently.

Sun Scientists Debate Whether Solar Lull Could Trigger Another 'Little Ice Age'

Some scientists say we could be headed for another "Little Ice Age," given how eerily calm the sun has been in recent years.

“I’ve never seen anything quite like this," Dr. Richard Harrison, head of space physics at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in England, told the BBC. "If you want to go back to see when the sun was this inactive in terms of the minimum we’ve just had and the peak that we have now, you’ve got to go back about 100 years.”

And our earth, as you say, well...the core anyway, is cooling although as it cools someplace, it also melts in another place.

Study: Earth's Core Is Melting

The Earth's inner core is a ball of solid iron about 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) wide, about the same size as the moon. This ball is surrounded by an outer core made up mostly of liquid iron-nickel alloy, a highly viscous mantle layer and, topping it off, a solid crust that forms the surface of the planet.

As the Earth cools from the inside out, the molten outer core is slowly freezing. This is leading the solid inner core to grow at a rate of approximately 1 millimeter per year. However, scientists now find that the inner core might be melting at the same time.

Still...there seems to be overall cooling in the core over a very long time frame. But the back and forth, melt and freeze, seem to be tied to earthquakes. And the melt, in particular, seems to be tied to the surface.

This melting could actually be linked to activity at the Earth's surface, the researchers said, and added that the discovery could help explain how the core generates the planet's magnetic field.

And so maybe insolation, Sun derived, is not the only thing that can cause global warming.

And I completely agree with you when you say that comets warm up as they approach the Sun.

(Seriously, I'm not sure where you're going with this thread?)

Well...right now I'm going to the center of the earth and then back to the magnetic field lines.

Wow i hope not