'Planet X' May Lurk Far Beyond Pluto

Now Fox News is getting in on the Planet X bandwagon.

An icy, unknown world might lurk in the distant reaches of our solar system beyond the orbit of Pluto, according to a new computer model.

The hidden world — thought to be much bigger than Pluto based on the model — could explain unusual features of the Kuiper Belt, the region of space beyond Neptune littered with icy and rocky bodies.

Thank goodness there is no mentione in the article that it is earthbound

The article has raised some questions for me though.

Sedna takes 12,000 years to travel once around the Sun, and its orbit ranges from 80 to 100 astronomical units (AU). One AU is equal to the distance between the Earth and the Sun.

now pluto is said to be 30-50AU and its orbit is 250 years give or take. If Sednas orbit is nearly double why is the orbit arounf 50 times longer?

According to the model, Sedna and other Kuiper Belt oddities could be explained by a world 30 to 70 percent as massive as Earth orbiting between 100 AU and 200 AU from the sun.

If the orbit of this 'new' plutoid is double that of sedna it would have to be so much larger than 30-70% of earth to effect the gravity of Sedna etc.. Also, how long would that orbit take?



[edit on 18/6/2008 by VIKINGANT]

Its either it don't exist or maybe it pluto who's its moon.I cant figure this out and its just still speculation if this planet exist.Must be a massive one.

4th post about this today, do a search

Thanks for the advice.
For the record I did a search didnt see this story at the time and there is nothing in space exploration so far so technically still valid. IMO

Sedna takes 12,000 years to travel once around the Sun, and its orbit ranges from 80 to 100 astronomical units (AU).

That last figure is incorrect. The aphelion distance of Sedna is nearly 1000AUs.

If the orbit of this 'new' plutoid is double that of sedna it would have to be so much larger than 30-70% of earth to effect the gravity of Sedna etc.. Also, how long would that orbit take?

The orbital period of this hypothetical planet (which I firmly believe exists) would only be a fraction of the orbital period of Sedna (probably around 1000 years). Sedna could have been gravitationally accelerated by this planet into its current orbit, after a series of close encounters. Many other scattered disk objects appear to have suffered similar (though less dramatic) fates. In short, they should have relatively low inclination, low eccentricity orbits like the vast majority of objects in the Kuiper Belt, rather than the highly elliptical, highly inclined (20-40 degree) orbits that they possess today.

Pluto and Eris are fascinating objects, but discovering a planet the size of Earth in the far reaches of the outer Solar System would be a revelation.