It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
(visit the link for the full news article)
A dark object may be lurking near our solar system, occasionally kicking comets in our direction.
Nicknamed "Nemesis" or "The Death Star," this undetected object could be a red or brown dwarf star, or an even darker presence several times the mass of Jupiter.
The Footprint of Nemesis
A recently-discovered dwarf planet, named Sedna, has an extra-long and usual elliptical orbit around the Sun. Sedna is one of the most distant objects yet observed, with an orbit ranging between 76 and 975 AU (where 1 AU is the distance between the Earth and the Sun). Sedna's orbit is estimated to l
Originally posted by Solasis
reply to post by ChemBreather
Xena/Eris is a dwarf planet.
NEAT comet was a normal comet that happened to be very bright.
You people are so superstitious...
That wasn't an actual insult, it was a Firesign Theatre reference
[edit on 11-3-2010 by Solasis]
A new infrared telescope has found 16 to 20 previously unknown asteroids that come close to Earth.
The asteroids are dark, with most reflecting less than one-tenth of the sunlight that hits them. One object is as dark as asphalt, reflecting less than 5 percent of its light.
The objects, which some scientists suspect may be spent comets, pose no threat to the planet, though how they got here remains a mystery.
"This population tells us a lot about the solar system's history and formation," said NASA's Amy Mainzer, the lead researcher on a project to use a new infrared telescope called WISE to search for near-Earth objects.
The Wide-Field Infrared Explorer, or WISE, has been on the hunt for about seven weeks, mapping the sky for objects that radiate in the infrared. Within six months, WISE is expected to have surveyed the entire sky.
"We're just getting the first data on asteroids in general," Mainzer told Discovery News. "It's still really, really early so we don't have an idea of how big this population actually is."
About half of the newly found objects reflect less than 10 percent of the sunlight that hits them, making them difficult if not impossible to spot with visible light telescopes. WISE finds objects by their heat emissions.
The newly discovered objects have highly inclined orbits, which has planetary scientist Richard Binzel, with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, thinking that they are comets which have had all their surface ices striped away by heating, leaving just a comet nuclei orbiting in the inner solar system.
Comets are believed to have formed in the frozen outer regions of the solar system, but occasionally some are bumped in closer to the sun due to the gravitational pull of the giant planet Jupiter. As they orbit closer to the sun, ices on their surface vaporize, forming a distinctive fuzzy tail around the comet's body. Binzel believes WISE is finding extinct comets.
"We're constantly finding new stuff," Mainzer said. "We're drinking from the fire hose of knowledge right now. What we've seen is a very exciting glimpse of what is to come."
Originally posted by xxcalbier
accutly we now ahve a good idea of were this (planet failed star )
is just reciently secintest descovered our solar system isent accutly all the way round one side has a ((((dent ))) like a very very large body near taht sopt accutly creating a gravational ripple .
as for anything else well ovesly we eather have a dark star or planet .
Originally posted by xxshadowfaxx
Once again, an object twice the size of jupiter already came through our solar system. It was called NEAT comet. They didn't see it, until it was only two months away. It was moving so damn fast that it was out of the solar system in a few days. If its orbit is highly eliptical, then I believe that this comet is coming back, and will be back in our solar system, just in time for 2012.
Bad thing is we are in/approching the end of one of those intervals - so we better wake the F-up and get our crap together before it happens again!
Originally posted by superdebz
Originally posted by xxshadowfaxx
Once again, an object twice the size of jupiter already came through our solar system. It was called NEAT comet. They didn't see it, until it was only two months away. It was moving so damn fast that it was out of the solar system in a few days. If its orbit is highly eliptical, then I believe that this comet is coming back, and will be back in our solar system, just in time for 2012.
bull#.
Originally posted by Vonour
www.sitchiniswrong.com...
Video showing that Neberu is actually name of Jupiter