Our 10th "planet" and surprises...

I'm not quite sure what to make of the info coming to "light" that our new solar system "passenger" is about 4 or 5 times "brighter" than it should be.
I'm thinkin' a dirty old snow-ball or a planetoid might not be expected to be so reflective, maybe. This thing is perhaps way too "shiney"? I don't know much at all about this specific subject but I can't help but notice the "bumps" in the data-stream. SpaceRef
From the article and sorry about the quote syntax if it doesn't fit the rules I'm workin' on it,

"Although an albedo of 90% has never
been observed for Kuiper Belt Objects (which typically show 10-20%), it is not totally implausible,
as Brown et al. suggest in their article."

Please give this data some reflective consideration and please post opinions... I'm a "newbie" here but I thought this anomaly might be a data-point worth exploring.

Well, maybe it's a huge chunk of white calcium, since it doesn't take much dust to substantially lower the albedo of a "snowy" surface. And besides, the results of the Wild 2 probe have to be considered when looking at any of the objects in the frontier.

Interesting that the original measurement implies a much higher thermal emission than expected. One would think that as you get farther away from the Sun, things should get colder. But maybe that's an old assumption that needs to be tossed out, too.

Makes you wonder if there might be some kind of other mechanism available that could generate heat in deep interstellar space. So stray "planets" might be found floating around in-between stars that have a chance to harbor life of some kind.

Enkidu exactly! Thought I'd have to tease it out. Kudos to you. Why is this thing generating/reflecting both heat and light way above background or even that which might be expected? Seems this must be coming from somehere/something that we may not have a clear understanding of. To my best knowledge at this point no one is claiming "a core" source. I can't wait to see how this'll be 'explained-away" like "ice-crystals". My mind is open but this does seem "potentially weird" and perhaps contradictory according to the evidence cited. Thanks eh! Any one else?

A large enough planet could stay warm deep in its interior for quite some time. After all, the earth has a magma core, and that is from gravity pressure and accuumulated formaton energy, not the sun. So a shell of habital temperatures has existed within the earth for a very very long time (+billion years, and could continue for several billion more, if it weren't for that thing with the sun swallowing us in a billion or two.) And that isn't even considering the potential heat of a smaller object with a significant quantity of radioactive isotopes.

Possible contributions to high albedo: A very grainy, flat surface of highly reflective particles

I guess we need to find out where the maximum albedo lies (in wavelength), where it dives, and where it is not reflective. From that, we can learn more about the size of surface structures. (millimeter sand grains, or smooth as glass, for exampe.)


[edit on 17-4-2006 by Ectoterrestrial]

[edit on 17-4-2006 by Ectoterrestrial]

Is that an actual picture of Xena at the SpaceRef site?

Here's nice photo of it > Planet Xena

[edit on 4/17/06 by Tea]

I have not looked into the evidence just yet and I'm merely throwing the idea out there to see how it bounces back. A high albedo and a higher-than-expected temperature does seem a little strange; however, that is only strange if you keep insisting on the current theories about celestial mechanics and physics being accurate. The current theories cannot explain why Venus' temperature is higher than expected either. One hypothesis that can explain Venus is Hyperdimensional Physics. Basically--according to my understanding--angular momentum and rotation can somehow cause energy from a higher dimension to leak into the lower dimensions. This leaked energy can create heat, increase momentum, and various other things. Venus rotates in an opposite direction than other planets and this rotation may cause energy from a higher dimension to leak into the current dimension which accordingly heats the planet up. It may be possible to explain Xena in the same manner. Like I said though, I have not looked into it yet and am merely throwing the idea out there.

...sweet thread about this PX out there w/ some legit, interesting sites attached, one has a photo -- total snowball is right! Here are some clips from the info link:

We are impressed by the direct Hubble Space Telescope size measurement of Xena.... Measuring the size of such a tiny and moving object is a very difficult task. We were pleased to learn that our claim that 2003UB313 is larger than Pluto

A wide range of values of q has been measured for solar system objects, ranging from 0.2 to over 1.2. We had chosen 0.9 because this is an average value found for Pluto, which we thought to be an appropriate analogon.

Assuming the reference star to be single is a good guess, but is far from certain. Roughly half of all stars are multiple systems, and a faint field star such as the one chosen for the measurement is likely to be distant enough (more than 1000 light years)

Given the inherent uncertainties in both methods, the actual size of 2003 UB313 is not established beyond reasonable doubt by either the MAMBO or HST measurements.

Question: is this the eclipse orbit PX and how far does 1000 light years take? Also, some of those K Belt objects are "unknown"? This is where novice astronomers on here talk a crazy talk -- "there's no PX" "we'd of seen it by now" -- enough is enough, you wouldn't of seen it yet, check this article, it's from a legit source. Seriously.

...had to break this one out last time for the weekend..... check my last post in a challenge to novice astronomers that seem to always doubt a PX or rogue comet.

This thread is the Honda 2011 comet simulation. A pass this year around Xmas and judging from the program, a hit in that year. Check it out here:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Well, Vic, this kind of reminds me of the old Star Trek episode when they beam aboard the ancient artificial planatoid that is actually an interstellar spacecraft "ark" trying to find a new world. The old guy is being zapped by electrical shocks as he tries to tell his story. Just before he expires from remotely controlled electrical bursts (their equivalent of the NWO illuminati Masonic Cabal) he says,

"I have touched the sky!"

Therefore it must be a reflective aluminum alloy/composite skin with temperataure coming from the aliens living inside huddled around their campfires after generations traveling in space. Only a few more miles until they get here--I figure about 2012.

Prepare!

[edit on 10/21/2007 by schuyler]