Two giant planets may cruise unseen beyond Pluto

From New Scientist

The monsters are multiplying. Just months after astronomers announced hints of a giant "Planet X" lurking beyond Pluto, a team in Spain says there may actually be two supersized planets hiding in the outer reaches of our solar system.

When potential dwarf planet 2012 VP113 was discovered in March, it joined a handful of unusual rocky objects known to reside beyond the orbit of Pluto. These small objects have curiously aligned orbits, which hints that an unseen planet even further out is influencing their behaviour. Scientists calculated that this world would be about 10 times the mass of Earth and would orbit at roughly 250 times Earth's distance from the sun.

Planets this far from the sun would be unimaginably cold. IR wavelengths would be strained to see out this far, even for bodies this large. Visible wavelengths would be a near impossibility. We are so concerned with the deep space field of study, looking for new and interesting objects well beyond our solar system, and even our galaxy. Yet we do not really know what is in the outer solar system, and have only begun to scratch the surface.

Its funny isnt it, how we can use special scopes to detect planets in other solar systems and we struggle to see the ones in orbit in our own.

That far out though, i very much doubt its going to be anything special. No heat, no light, boring.

a reply to: projectvxn

I wonder if the Voyager probes have recorded any data that could be useful in learning something new about these possible dark world's?

They are heading through that general neighborhood after all.

Love this stuff. Sedna and Eris were just the beginning. In 30 years we will probably have thousands of these larger TNO, scattered disc, and inner oort cloud objects cataloged. Some may be 10 times earths mass (which would be awesome). The orbital resonance is interesting to consider as well. Perhaps something massive enough to explain the perturbation of the outer objects. Maybe it started closer in and was flung out to become part of the scattered disc, or part of the inner oort cloud. May even be a captured rogue. At 250 AU it means these objects are 2-2.5 the distance beyond Eris which is 3 times further than Pluto. Then again Sedna gets as far away as 930 AU. This is just beginning. Astronomy rules.

Preemptive strike: no the sun doesn't belong to a binary system, no this isn't a brown dwarf.

a reply to: projectvxn

Why wouldn't earth or orbit based instruments "see" these planets? Even at 250 times the distance from the sun as earth some light must reach them and reflect, enough to give humans a look at them. Maybe they have been picked up but people have missed them by not double-checking the information on object-movement.

Very good thread, thanks.

SnF interesting find projectvxn it would possibly allow more data gathering if SOL system had EA*RTH observation probs. out that far already...
How long have these been REALLY out there 1 wonders or are they recent?

Reminds me of the movie Thor 2- with the dark elf that lives in complete darkness and ice. And waits for all the planets to align!

originally posted by: Biigs
Its funny isnt it, how we can use special scopes to detect planets in other solar systems and we struggle to see the ones in orbit in our own.

That far out though, i very much doubt its going to be anything special. No heat, no light, boring.

Can't it be a Brown Dwarf star?
Those are only detectible with infrared telescopes and so are not cold.

Awesome!
I think it's amazing how these large objects are held in orbit so far out. We live in an exciting age of discovery.

a reply to: Biigs

It's mostly through the effects that those extra solar planets have on their native suns that they're detected...

A planet that far out? Might not have the same noticeable effects...

Or I might not have a clue what I'm talkin' about...!! Which is probably more likely.

I think it's the job for the upcoming Webb Telescope, which will operate in infrared. WISE telescope is just too small for this, and has ran out of its coolant anyway.

At such immense distance from the Sun, the reflected light from those hypothetical planets would bee too dim to register with any telescopes in existence (unless we know exactly where to look and take several days' worth of exposure).

So far, I have been sceptical about proposals for a big planet out there, but now more and more evidence speaks in its favour.

originally posted by: Plugin

originally posted by: Biigs
Its funny isnt it, how we can use special scopes to detect planets in other solar systems and we struggle to see the ones in orbit in our own.

That far out though, i very much doubt its going to be anything special. No heat, no light, boring.

Can't it be a Brown Dwarf star?
Those are only detectible with infrared telescopes and so are not cold.

Brown dwarfs are no more "invisible" than a normal planet.

Consider a brown dwarf sitting right next to a planet. If that planet is somewhere that it could be reflecting enough light to be seen using a visible light telescope, then that brown dwarf could also potentially be seen using that same telescope, because it, too, would be reflecting light...

...Now, put that planet and brown dwarf in the far reaches of our solar system, and neither of them may be reflecting enough light to be seen by a visible light telescope. What I'm saying is that it isn't any particular characteristic of a brown dwarf itself that makes it hard to see using a visible light telescope, but rather it is the fact that it isn't near enough to a star to be lit up buy that star (and the same goes for a planet not near a star).

originally posted by: Biigs
Its funny isnt it, how we can use special scopes to detect planets in other solar systems and we struggle to see the ones in orbit in our own.

That far out though, i very much doubt its going to be anything special. No heat, no light, boring.

We detect exoplanets around other stars by:

(1) finding ones that transit (move in front of) their star, thus diminishing the starlight enough to know a planet is there, and
(2) detecting the slight wobble in a star from planets tugging on that star as they orbit.

Something far out in the solar system would not move between us and the Sun; therefore the "transit method" would not work. The wobble method can (for now) only detect planets that are large enough or close enough to their parent star to cause a wobble that we are able to detect. Something far beyond Pluto would need to be REALLY big for us to be able to detect a wobble using the technology we have.

It may be true that we can "see" some exoplanets using visible light telescopes, but there are only a handful of those, and they are close enough to their star to be well-lit. Plus, most (all?) of those were not originally found by "looking" for them visibly, but rather they had been previously detected by using the transit method or the wobble method, so we knew specifically where to look, because they were already known about.

Is it possible to aim a nondestructive laser in that direction and as it gets near celestial objects it vibrates unique per celestial body the laser nears. Test it with PLUTO and then its near moons then aim it in the dark space surrounding the moons and PLUTO and slowly move the range or expand the laser range in ripple like effect that gradually builds mapping data. Kind of listening in with a laser mic but a cosmic laser mic...
I know the tech seems out of time loop period but?

originally posted by: Soylent Green Is People

originally posted by: Plugin

originally posted by: Biigs
Its funny isnt it, how we can use special scopes to detect planets in other solar systems and we struggle to see the ones in orbit in our own.

That far out though, i very much doubt its going to be anything special. No heat, no light, boring.

Can't it be a Brown Dwarf star?
Those are only detectible with infrared telescopes and so are not cold.

Brown dwarfs are no more "invisible" than a normal planet.

Consider a brown dwarf sitting right next to a planet. If that planet is somewhere that it could be reflecting enough light to be seen using a visible light telescope, then that brown dwarf could also potentially be seen using that same telescope, because it, too, would be reflecting light...

...Now, put that planet and brown dwarf in the far reaches of our solar system, and neither of them may be reflecting enough light to be seen by a visible light telescope. What I'm saying is that it isn't any particular characteristic of a brown dwarf itself that makes it hard to see using a visible light telescope, but rather it is the fact that it isn't near enough to a star to be lit up buy that star (and the same goes for a planet not near a star).

Ok nice explanation.

I also came on this part:

Many brown dwarfs have also been discovered embedded in large clouds of gas and dust.

So if a planet surrounding a brown dwarf which has huge clouds of gas & dust it also makes the planet invisible or at least harder to spot?

originally posted by: Soylent Green Is People

originally posted by: Biigs
Its funny isnt it, how we can use special scopes to detect planets in other solar systems and we struggle to see the ones in orbit in our own.

That far out though, i very much doubt its going to be anything special. No heat, no light, boring.

We detect exoplanets around other stars by:

(1) finding ones that transit (move in front of) their star, thus diminishing the starlight enough to know a planet is there, and
(2) detecting the slight wobble in a star from planets tugging on that star as they orbit.

Something far out in the solar system would not move between us and the Sun; therefore the "transit method" would not work. The wobble method can (for now) only detect planets that are large enough or close enough to their parent star to cause a wobble that we are able to detect. Something far beyond Pluto would need to be REALLY big for us to be able to detect a wobble using the technology we have.

It may be true that we can "see" some exoplanets using visible light telescopes, but there are only a handful of those, and they are close enough to their star to be well-lit. Plus, most (all?) of those were not originally found by "looking" for them visibly, but rather they had been previously detected by using the transit method or the wobble method, so we knew specifically where to look, because they were already known about.

oh i know how they are detected i just thing its sort of strange we can see things lightyears away better than detect masses in our solar system.

originally posted by: Degradation33
Love this stuff. Sedna and Eris were just the beginning. In 30 years we will probably have thousands of these larger TNO, scattered disc, and inner oort cloud objects cataloged. Some may be 10 times earths mass (which would be awesome). The orbital resonance is interesting to consider as well. Perhaps something massive enough to explain the perturbation of the outer objects. Maybe it started closer in and was flung out to become part of the scattered disc, or part of the inner oort cloud. May even be a captured rogue. At 250 AU it means these objects are 2-2.5 the distance beyond Eris which is 3 times further than Pluto. Then again Sedna gets as far away as 930 AU. This is just beginning. Astronomy rules.

Preemptive strike: no the sun doesn't belong to a binary system, no this isn't a brown dwarf.

I once proposed that in the future we could use self replicating robots (with built in safety limiters) to gather the loose material in the solar system to custom build a new planet with the gravity of earth. even tailor the content of the core to match or slightly exceed our uranium and thorium content to ensure a molten core and plate tectonics.

at the time the primary counterargument other than the technological state of the art being inadequate for now was that the remaining loose material (dust, asteroids, icy bodies etc) did not have enough mass to equal earth's mass.

I said that that cannot be right given the current theory of stellar and planetary formation. that there had to be more material and that it could not have been blown so far away by solar that there isn't enough around. and as time went on (in fact even during the time i was arguing this) more and more kuiper, TNO and even sunward asteroids and so forth were discovered)

So this latest news comes as little surprise and makes me happy.

If we know about 10% of the debri that was initially tossed out during the formation of our sun and 10% is lost forever, that would leave 80% still yet to be discovered. There has to be some formula that could gauge how much debri is is ejected from a newborn sun after the the dust settles.

What we are capable of seeing in distant solar systems has to be only a minuscule amount of what must actually be there.

Awesome read! I have always believed that "Planet X" existed. I stated this in another thread. But the way it was portrayed to slam into Earth is what eventually made it laughable to believe such an object existed. That fact is, and this will eventually come out, is we are surrounded by "Planet X's". It'll likely scare the # out of people 10-20 years from now to know how many exist.

a reply to: HawkeyeNation

Every time a thread is started about other potential planets (or other relatively large bodies beyond Pluto), invariably we get a group of people posting on here saying "See -- I told you Nibiru was real!!", as if every discussion about "Planet X" or other unknown dwarf planets needs to devolve into a discussion about Nibiru.