Scientific Research on Solar System Brown Dwarf and Planet X.

originally posted by: DJW001

...
Yes, we are discovering more and more very faint objects outside of the Solar System, as well as smaller and smaller objects within the Solar System. You have essentially been arguing that because we can see elephants in the zoo down the road through our binoculars, there might be an elephant right here in our living room.

I have not had time to read the paper you linked to, but I note that it was published in 2008, before the Pioneer Anomaly was understood.

The above comment is dishonesty at it's worse... You can't compare a zoo, or your room with the size of our Solar System... Do you even know how big the Solar System is?... An elephant wouldn't even fit an average room so I have to wonder how anyone sane would make such a comparison..

BTW, I know you were trying to mock me by making an exaggerated analogy. But that's what it is, an exaggerated analogy that does not compare at all with the topic we are talking about. Astronomers and astrophysicists are not scanning every inch of our skies constantly. They only focus their observations on small sections of the universe they want to look at.

You seem to be implying that the long elongated orbit of planetoids like Sedna must mean that they are orbiting an even smaller planetoid?... Not even a planet could cause these long elongated orbits. How can a smaller planetoid, or even a planet have a gravitational pull strong enough that it counters our Sun's own gravitational pull?... That doesn't make sense.

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

You seem to be implying that the long elongated orbit of planetoids like Sedna must mean that they are orbiting an even smaller planetoid?... Not even a planet could cause these long elongated orbits. How can a smaller planetoid, or even a planet have a gravitational pull strong enough that it counters our Sun's own gravitational pull?... That doesn't make sense.

Sedna's highly eccentric orbit may be due to it having been ejected from the inner Solar System during the chaotic migratory period of the early Solar System's history. It may also have resulted from a collision with another planet, perhaps even a rogue one passing by. Although astronomers do not monitor the entire sky non-stop, it has been mapped in its entirety several times over the past few years. Astrometricists have been comparing the maps to determine the proper motion of stars in our galaxy. Minor planets are discovered this way, and if there are ice giants way out there, they will probably be spotted this way.

I think the problem you are having here is that you seem to be conflating the idea of a "planet," which is a "cold" body of relatively low mass with a "Brown Dwarf," which is a warm body of high mass. There may be bodies of planetary mass yet to be found in the outer Solar System. No-one has disputed this possibility. On the other hand, a large, massive glowing body would make its presence known very quickly. The fact that rogue "Brown Dwarfs" have been spotted in interstellar space underscores this point. My analogy stands: if we can spot the elephants down the road, we should easily be able to spot the elephant in the room.

originally posted by: DJW001

Sedna's highly eccentric orbit may be due to it having been ejected from the inner Solar System during the chaotic migratory period of the early Solar System's history. It may also have resulted from a collision with another planet, perhaps even a rogue one passing by.
...

You are ignoring the fact that there is an unknown gravitational field inside the Solar System which is strong enough to influence the elongated orbits of comets, and would make more sense that such a gravitational field is part of the reason why Sedna has such an eccentric orbit.

I am also pretty sure that you are wrong about how hot or cold a brown dwarf has to be to qualify as a "brown dwarf"... In fact, on April 2014 NASA released information about the discovery of the coldest brown dwarf they found thus far. In fact that brown dwarf is as cold as Earth's north pole.

NASA Discovers Coldest Brown Dwarf Neighbor of the Sun

By Megan Gannon, News Editor | April 28, 2014 11:32am ET

A brown dwarf as cold as the North Pole has been discovered lurking remarkably close to our solar system, and it appears to be the coldest of its kind yet found, scientists say.

Using NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and Spitzer Space Telescope, astronomers discovered the dim, "failed star" lurking just 7.2 light-years away, making it the fourth closest system to our sun.

"It's very exciting to discover a new neighbor of our solar system that is so close," Kevin Luhman, an astronomer at Pennsylvania State University's Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds, said in a statement. "And given its extreme temperature, it should tell us a lot about the atmospheres of planets, which often have similarly cold temperatures." [Brown Dwarf Photos: Failed Stars and Stellar Misfits]
...

www.space.com...


So there goes your claim that brown dwarfs have to be warm to be considered as a brown dwarf.

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

You are ignoring the fact that there is an unknown gravitational field inside the Solar System which is strong enough to influence the elongated orbits of comets, and would make more sense that such a gravitational field is part of the reason why Sedna has such an eccentric orbit.

This seems to be a peculiar use of the word "fact."

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

Since Sedna's discovery scientists have postulated the existence of a large planet beyond Pluto to account for its orbit. Over time this hypothesis has fallen out of favor (DJW mentioned most of the current prevalent hypotheses). So what's changed that further solidifies the extra planet(s) hypothesis and trashes the prevailing hypotheses?

I would like to state that numerous variables exist which could cause this type of orbit, one would be a collision, another would be incredible mass, and my favorite a binary system be they lesser stars than that of thier system or any grouping of planets and or moons like captured rouges which were ejected from a diff system most likey occuring during the merge of galaxys...

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

I just wanted to add that rotation as well as what the core is made of as well as the gravitational pull of any and all bodies greatly influences the overall temperature of any body in space...

And of course the distance from other stars

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

A Brown Dwarf is defined by it's mass, not heat:

Currently, the International Astronomical Union considers an object with a mass above the limiting mass for thermonuclear fusion of deuterium (currently calculated to be 13 Jupiter masses for objects of solar metallicity) to be a brown dwarf, whereas an object under that mass (and orbiting a star or stellar remnant) is considered a planet.

Brown Dwarfs can be warm or cold (when they reach of temp of 1,000 K or less, they are considered "cold").

You left this out from the article you linked:

At 3 to 10 times the mass of Jupiter, the object also may be one of the least massive brown dwarfs ever found, the astronomers say. Because it is so small, the scientists say it's possible that the body is actually a planet ejected from its star system, but brown dwarfs are known to be quite common cosmic objects.

The problem with brown dwarf's definition is that the mass cut off line is still debated. There are exoplanets that have up to 25 Jupiter masses....that would put them in the Brown Dwarf classification according to the definition of the IAU.

However, basically it boils down to whether or not the object has enough mass to do fusion of deuterium:

The 13 Jupiter-mass cutoff is a rule of thumb rather than something of precise physical significance. Larger objects will burn most of their deuterium and smaller ones will burn only a little, and the 13 Jupiter mass value is somewhere in between. The amount of deuterium burnt also depends to some extent on the composition of the object, specifically on the amount of helium and deuterium present and on the fraction of heavier elements, which determines the atmospheric opacity and thus the radiative cooling rate

By the way: coldest temps at the North Pole was -43 deg C.....that's still a blistering heat compared to absolute zero which is -273.15 deg C. On it's warmest day, temps at the North Pole of 5 deg C were recorded.

originally posted by: DJW001

This seems to be a peculiar use of the word "fact."

Peculiar? no. The unknown gravitational field is there, something must be causing it. What can possibly affect the speed and trajectories of comets, and pulls planetoids like Sedna into such elliptical orbits? Is it possible that it was because a collision? it's possible that some large event nudged these planetoids far out there, but such an event would not explain why these objects have stayed within their current orbits.

But don't take my word. You can listen to some planetary scientists discussing the fact that while it is possible for planetoids to be nudged by galactic tides, or a passing rogue failed star (brown dwarf) as well as being influenced by our largest neighbors such as Jupiter, and Neptune. The nudging from these gaseous giants can only go so far and cannot be influencing planetoids like Sedna and 2012VP113. But we are seeing the opposite, that Sedna alongside the second planetoid discovered, 2012VP113, are being influenced in a way that is simply not possible. They simply shouldn't be there. That is unless something else is influencing these planetoids, and that's where the more than possible brown dwarf, alongside at least one or more large planets would come into play.



I know it's long, but it is worth to watch.

Why do I say there must be more than just one large stellar object that haven't been discovered yet, but they are influencing some of the outer planets and planetoids like Sedna? Because meanwhile objects within the Oort Cloud feel the gravitational influence of the rest of the galaxy because of it's distance away from the Sun, and the Kuiper belt is influenced by Neptune, the inner Oort cloud however is just too far away from Neptune to feel it's effects and too near to the Sun to be controlled by the rest of the galaxy. So there has to be something there, within our Solar System influencing these planetoids.

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

The unknown gravitational field is there, something must be causing it.

I suggest you learn the difference between "fact" and "interpretation."

A brown dwarf is far too massive and "warm" (relatively speaking) to be a candidate for an object in the outer Solar System. It would have been discovered a long time ago. The orbits of Sedna and 2012 VP113 are very interesting, but we need to discover more objects with similar orbits to get a better idea of the location and mass of any hypothetical planetary mass bodies beyond the Kuiper Belt. Personally, I suspect that there is at least one planet waiting to be discovered, and very possibly more (although some of these could be at significantly greater distances, and not directly perturbing the orbits of Sedna or 2012 VP113).

I really hope that a new planet is discovered in the outer Solar System. It would be fantastic news!

a reply to: DJW001

For crying out loud, if you are going to participate at least watch that video first instead of trying to deny that which you don't understand, and apparently don't want to even look at. I even explained part of what those planetary scientists are talking about...

Anyways, unfortunately the abstract of the paper they are talking about does not do service in making a summary of what this discovery means, you have to pay a subscription to be able to read the rest of the paper. But the planetary scientists do explain it in simple terms in that video I gave a link to that anyone should be able to understand.

a reply to: Mogget


You seem to be a bit more open than DJW001 and some other members, but you also seem to have missed the discovery NASA made, and which I posted in this same page. You just had to scroll up a bit to find the discovery of the coldest brown dwarf NASA has discovered lately.

Here it is again.

NASA Discovers Coldest Brown Dwarf Neighbor of the Sun

By Megan Gannon, News Editor | April 28, 2014 11:32am ET

A brown dwarf as cold as the North Pole has been discovered lurking remarkably close to our solar system, and it appears to be the coldest of its kind yet found, scientists say.

Using NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and Spitzer Space Telescope, astronomers discovered the dim, "failed star" lurking just 7.2 light-years away, making it the fourth closest system to our sun.

"It's very exciting to discover a new neighbor of our solar system that is so close," Kevin Luhman, an astronomer at Pennsylvania State University's Center for Exoplanets and Habitable Worlds, said in a statement. "And given its extreme temperature, it should tell us a lot about the atmospheres of planets, which often have similarly cold temperatures." [Brown Dwarf Photos: Failed Stars and Stellar Misfits]
...

www.space.com...


BTW, since at least you seem to be a bit more interested than members like DJW001, do me a favor and watch the video link I gave in this page, then you should understand why I have been saying we know the unknown gravitational field is within the Solar System, and there are only a few possible explanations as to what is causing that gravitational field which includes a large perturber planet, and/or a brown dwarf among the few possible candidates being able to influence planetoids like Sedna, 2012VP113, and long period comets among other objects in the outer Solar System.

The thing is that computer models suggest that the orbit of these inner Oort cloud objects should be randomly distributed, but this is not the case. Instead " they share similar values of a particular orbital characteristic called the argument of perihelion”. What this suggests is that there is at least another object within the Solar System with enough mass that is influencing the orbits of the inner Oort cloud planetoids.

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

But the planetary scientists doexplain it in simple terms in that video I gave a link to that anyone should be able to understand.

And therein lies the problem. You keep confusing simplifications intended for laypeople with the scientists' own understanding of the model. I try to keep abreast of new developments in the sciences, particularly physics and astronomy. The more one knows, the more one realizes what one doesn't know. On the other hand, EU clearly explains everything.

a reply to: DJW001

You just keep going around in circles avoiding what is being explained in that video... How about this, if you really want to continue discussing this with me watch the video. Why can't you do that? Is that too much to ask? If you really are "keeping abreast of new developments in the sciences, particular physics and astronomy" you shouldn't have any reason to keep avoiding what is being discussed in that video... Yet, here you are, trying to dismiss the video meanwhile you haven't even watched it... That says the contrary to your claim of "keeping abreast with the sciences, particularly physics and astronomy"...

To make it easier, since understandably it is a long video, I will point out some of the most important arguments these planetary scientists are discussing in the video.

First, who these people are.

Confirmed Participants:
Michele Bannister (University of Victoria, Canada)
Wes Fraser (Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics, Canada)
Emily Lakdawalla (Senior Editor at Planetary Society & Planetary Evangelist, USA)
Alex Parker (UC Berkeley, USA)
Meg Schwamb (Institute of Astronomy & Astrophysics, Academia Sinica, Taiwan)
Kat Volk (University of British Columbia, Canada)

BTW, if you want to avoid the long introduction you can skip the video and at around 9 minutes Meg Schwamb starts explaining that these objects shouldn't be there since their elliptical orbits doesn't take them close enough to be influenced by Neptune, and they don't go far enough into the outer Solar System to be influenced by the rest of the galaxy. In other words, these planetoids shouldn't be there, and shouldn't have these elliptical orbits unless there is something else in that region influencing their orbits. Then they go into another long explanation of how the data was gathered, which you can skip if you want.

At 23 minutes 40 seconds Meg Schwamb asks Kat what this means, and why they think these objects shouldn't be there. Meanwhile Kat is explaining some of the possible reasons on how Sedna "got there", Fraser interrupts to point an interesting fact. If you plot out the angle of closest approach of these inner Oort Cloud objects, there is a little finger in the space of really distant objects that they pointed at(in the paper) that anyone could have plotted distance versus this angle which could not have been made by whatever inner solar system interactions caused Sedna to get there. Rather that finger could be interpreted as having been caused by a "perturbing body".


(apologies for the rough outline)

In the paper it is explained that this "finger" feature could not be generated by an external planet, but could be maintained by an external planet, as explained by Alex.

As we understand the Solar System today, the angles of these objects should circulate from 0 to 360 randomly distributed, but they are not, their angles cluster close to about 0 degrees.

Then at 27 minutes Meg, and Lakdawala explain that a super Earth mass object further out from Sedna, at about 250 AU (which they mention later in the video) could be causing that both Sedna and 2012VP113 have that angle.

Anyways, do watch that video because not only is it very interesting, but it sheds light on the very probable "super Earth mass object, and they even later talk about the possibility of a brown dwarf cold enough that we haven't discovered yet could be even further out but within the Solar System.

If they found a brown dwarf as cold as the North Pole 7.2 light-years away, you'd think they would easily find one if it existed in the outer Solar System.

Going by orbits of known bodies, there's too little data to point to a definite object that influences them gravitationally. Every now and again, some astronomers come up with a hypothesis based on some of those orbits (such as a couple of them proposing the existence of Nemesis based on some long-period comet orbits), but these hypotheses never go far, due to the lack of data, or even errors in their calculations.

We need a lot more suggestive data and observations to start banging drums about a trans-Neptunian planet or a brown dwarf in the Solar System.

originally posted by: DJW001
a reply to: ElectricUniverse

You seem to be implying that the long elongated orbit of planetoids like Sedna must mean that they are orbiting an even smaller planetoid?... Not even a planet could cause these long elongated orbits. How can a smaller planetoid, or even a planet have a gravitational pull strong enough that it counters our Sun's own gravitational pull?... That doesn't make sense.

Sedna's highly eccentric orbit may be due to it having been ejected from the inner Solar System during the chaotic migratory period of the early Solar System's history. It may also have resulted from a collision with another planet, perhaps even a rogue one passing by. Although astronomers do not monitor the entire sky non-stop, it has been mapped in its entirety several times over the past few years. Astrometricists have been comparing the maps to determine the proper motion of stars in our galaxy. Minor planets are discovered this way, and if there are ice giants way out there, they will probably be spotted this way.

I think the problem you are having here is that you seem to be conflating the idea of a "planet," which is a "cold" body of relatively low mass with a "Brown Dwarf," which is a warm body of high mass. There may be bodies of planetary mass yet to be found in the outer Solar System. No-one has disputed this possibility. On the other hand, a large, massive glowing body would make its presence known very quickly. The fact that rogue "Brown Dwarfs" have been spotted in interstellar space underscores this point. My analogy stands: if we can spot the elephants down the road, we should easily be able to spot the elephant in the room.

Y type brown dwarfs would not be so easy to spot as their low temperature might be even with the background or swamped by other IR sources.

i would also like to point out we have had the good fortune of finding a few sub terran sized rocky planets around other stars when the circumstances were just right for finding them. but such circumstances are rare. it's not because we have the capability to suss such planets out at will. we may in the future but not now. now it's down to luck. likewise we may have spotted a few y type brown dwarfs but it's not because we have perfected technology to make it easy.

originally posted by: wildespace
If they found a brown dwarf as cold as the North Pole 7.2 light-years away, you'd think they would easily find one if it existed in the outer Solar System.

...

In that you are wrong. First of all, when dealing with such vast and distant areas, as it's stated in the video, they have to set limits as to what to look for and where. So you need to know exactly where to look at if you are looking for anything in specific. Second, in areas like the galactic center it is difficult to find such objects because it's too bright, and any object that is very dim is extremely hard to find. However, in the next decade or so the kilometer array will be coming online, and it will make it a lot easier to gather an all sky information derived from pulsar timing on whether or not there is a sub-stellar companion (such as a brown dwarf) in our solar system. You can skip the video to 43 minutes where Alex and then Michele explain this.

Again, I see some people trying to jump the gun. You obviously did not even watch the video either. Why respond at all when obviously you haven't bothered to watch the video? Not to mention that there are other research papers that also point out to the real possibility of there being a super Earth mass object at around 300 AU, in this latest paper they speculate the object to be at around 250AU.

Some of those papers and information I have already posted in this thread which suggest such an object include.

On the anomalous secular increase of the eccentricity of the orbit
of the Moon
Lorenzo Iorio1
Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Universit`a e della Ricerca (M.I.U.R.). Permanent address for
correspondence: Viale Unit`a di Italia 68, 70125, Bari (BA), Italy.
...
Within the Newtonian framework, we considered the action of a circular massive ring modeling the Edgeworth-Kuiper belt of Trans-Neptunian Objects, but it does not induce secular variations of e. In principle, a viable candidate would be a putative trans-Plutonian massive object (PlanetX/Nemesis/Tyche), recently revamped to accommodate certain features of the architecture of the Kuiper belt and of the distribution of the comets in the Oort cloud, since it would cause a non-vanishing long-term variation of the eccentricity.Actually, the values for its mass and distance needed to explain the empirically determined increase of the lunar eccentricity would be highly unrealistic and in contrast with the most recent viable theoretical scenarios for the existence of such a body. For example, a terrestrial-sized body should be located at just 30 au, while an object with the mass of Jupiter should be at 200 au.
...

arxiv.org...

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

The perihelion precession of Saturn, planet X/Nemesis and MOND

Lorenzo Iorio

(Submitted on 27 Jul 2009 (v1), last revised 12 Jan 2011 (this version, v6))

We show that the retrograde perihelion precession of Saturn Deltadotvarpi, recently estimated by different teams of astronomers by processing ranging data from the Cassini spacecraft and amounting to some milliarcseconds per century, can be explained in terms of a localized, distant body X, not yet directly discovered. From the determination of its tidal parameter K = GM_X/r_X^3 as a function of its ecliptic longitude lambda_X and latitude beta_X, we calculate the distance at which X may exist for different values of its mass, ranging from the size of Mars to that of the Sun. The minimum distance would occur for X located perpendicularly to the ecliptic, while the maximum distance is for X lying in the ecliptic. We find for rock-ice planets of the size of Mars and the Earth that they would be at about 80-150 au, respectively, while a Jupiter-sized gaseous giant would be at approximately 1 kau. A typical brown dwarf would be located at about 4 kau, while an object with the mass of the Sun would be at approximately 10 kau, so that it could not be Nemesis for which a solar mass and a heliocentric distance of about 88 kau are predicted. If X was directed towards a specific direction, i.e. that of the Galactic Center, it would mimick the action of a recently proposed form of the External Field Effect (EFE) in the framework of the MOdified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND).
...

arxiv.org...

Is the physics within the Solar system really understood?
C. L¨ammerzahl1, O. Preuss2, and H. Dittus1
1 ZARM, University of Bremen, Am Fallturm, 28359 Bremen, Germany
2 Max–Planck–Institute for Solar System Research, Max-Planck-Str. 2,
37191 Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany
February 7, 2008
...
The reason for this is totally unclear. One may speculate that an unknown gravitational field within the Solar system slightly redirects the incoming cosmic microwave radiation (in the similar way as a motion with a certain velocity with respect to the rest frame of the cosmological background redirects the cosmic background radiation and leads to modifications of the dipole and quadrupole parts). Such a redirection should be more pronounced for low–l components of the radiation. It should be possible to calculate the gravitational field needed for such a redirection and then to compare that with the observational data of the Solar system and the other observed anomalies.
...

arxiv.org...

New Planet Found in Our Solar System?

Odd orbits of remote objects hint at unseen world, new calculations suggest.
...
Mystery Planet a Captured Rogue?

For the new work, Gomes analyzed the orbits of 92 Kuiper belt objects, then compared his results to computer models of how the bodies should be distributed, with and without an additional planet.

If there's no distant world, Gomes concludes, the models don't produce the highly elongated orbits we see for six of the objects.

How big exactly the planetary body might be isn't clear, but there are a lot of possibilities, Gomes added.

Based on his calculations, Gomes thinks a Neptune-size world, about four times bigger than Earth, orbiting 140 billion miles (225 billion kilometers) away from the sun—about 1,500 times farther than Earth—would do the trick.
...

news.nationalgeographic.com...