Science!! Fucking magnets, how do they work?

Troll_sl said:

I assume that's B.C.

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Sorry, yes, but tickets are ridiculously expensive according to my dad. He mentioned 7500 bucks a pop, although I havent confirmed that personally.

Scientists found what they think is a dwarf planet that orbits the sun beyond Pluto and they nick named it VP after Joe Biden.Dwarf planet stretches Solar System's edge : Nature News Comment

Moogalak_sl said:

Coolest part of that discovery is that they think there could be a planet 10x the size of earth affecting "Biden"'s orbit. Planet X! Lumie be summoned!

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Not sure where you got that in the story posted. What it said was that in the distant past, we're talking billions of years ago, a rogue planet may have passed near the solar system, causing some objects to get jostled around. It didn't say that there is another large planet actually orbiting the Sun currently.

Eomer_sl said:

Not sure where you got that in the story posted. What it said was that in the distant past, we're talking billions of years ago, a rogue planet may have passed near the solar system, causing some objects to get jostled around. It didn't say that there is another large planet actually orbiting the Sun currently.

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huh?

The Solar System just got a lot more far-flung. Astronomers have discovered a probable dwarf planet that orbits the Sun far beyond Pluto, in the most distant trajectory known.

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The Ancient_sl said:

huh?

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Let's take a look at Mooglak's post again:

Mooglak_sl said:

Coolest part of that discovery is that they thinkthere could be a planet 10x the size of earth affecting "Biden"'s orbit.Planet X! Lumie be summoned!

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"Biden" is not a "large" planet. It's a dwarf planet maybe 450km in diameter. I'm not disputing that. I'm disputing Mooglak's supposition that there's a Planet X 10 times the size of Earth affecting Biden. That is not supported by the article posted. What the article said is this: "Another possibility is that a massive rogue planet passed through at some point, kicking objects from the Kuiper belt outwards into the inner Oort cloud." A rogue planet by definition does not orbit the Sun.

We clear now?

Also, even that quote you used kind of sucks. It's only kinda sorta "the most distant trajectory known." It's closest point is more distant than Sedna's closest. However Sedna goes WAY the fuck further out in it's orbit, as evidenced by the diagram in the article.

Moogalak_sl said:

I edited my post, but check it out for yourself:

A new object at the edge of our Solar System discovered

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Ah, fair enough, that article does mention it. The Nature one didn't.

"In fact, the similarity in the orbits found for Sedna, 2012 VP113 and a few other objects near the edge of the Kuiper Belt suggests that an unknown massive perturbing body may be shepherding these objects into these similar orbital configurations. Sheppard and Trujillo suggest a Super Earth or an even larger object at hundreds of AU could create the shepherding effect seen in the orbits of these objects, which are too distant to be perturbed significantly by any of the known planets."

It's probably just a slumbering old god.

Kind of crazy that there could be huge objects that relatively close to us which we can not see. All kinds of whacked out things like Nemesis rogue star theory which would be all kinds of interesting if confirmed one day.

According to pluto files it's a definitional problem.

And there does need to be a stable definition. When it's just a couple of rocks around the nearest star it's not such a big deal. But we're finding the bastards, and we're going to need to classify them by some consistent means.

Big Phoenix_sl said:

That dwarf planet shit is really annoying. To me it comes off as people dont like the idea of our solar system having a few dozen planets.

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Dude, there's probably hundreds of dwarf planets in the Oort cloud. A line had to be drawn somewhere.

Right. Stars are stars, but they are classified typically based on size and other factors (dwarfs, giants, etc).

(1) A "planet"1 is a celestial body that: (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) hascleared the neighbourhoodaround its orbit.(2) A "dwarf planet" is a celestial body that: (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape2, (c) has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit, and (d) is not a satellite.
(3) All other objects3, except satellites, orbiting the Sun shall be referred to collectively as "Small Solar System Bodies".

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Also, discovery of planets is generally very hard. I mean, the first extrasolar planet was only found in 1991. Generally speaking, the solar system has to be on the same plane as our view of it for us to detect planets around it. One method which iirc is responsible for the most planets being discovered is the Doppler method, which generally leads to Jupiter-sized planets being discovered since only planets about that size and in close proximity to a star has a sufficient tug, which, btw, we can measure as little as 40ft of "tug". We can also measure the light when a planet passes in front of a star, but this is much more difficult.

How Do Astronomers Find Other Planets?

Also, I think that based on what we know about solar system formation, you would not see 20-30 earth-sized planets in orbit around 1 star.

BoldW_sl said:

Also, I think that based on what we know about solar system formation, you would not see 20-30 earth-sized planets in orbit around 1 star.

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It's possible that you might find a planetary system with that many large objects in it reasonably close to the star, but it's extremely unlikely they will have "cleared the neighborhood" at is would be very early in the system's evolution. Which would make them technically a dwarf planet, even though they're not small. So yeah, the definitions aren't perfect by any means, but they had to find a compromise somewhere. It's certainly better than saying that Ceres, Vesta, Charon, Eris, Makemake, Haumea, Sedna, Orcus, Salacia, Quaoar, and a bunch of numbered shit (that will eventually number in the hundreds) are all planets in the same category as Earth and Jupiter.

And that's not even talking about the 20 or so moons that are basically planet sized.

Big Phoenix_sl said:

And when we find a system with 20-30 Earth-Mars sized bodies? I get that there are gonna be a ton of 300-600km icey, round bodies floating around. I just think its dumb how the criteria they went with when it comes to what is what.

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Then lay out your alternative classification system. To me a classification system that lumped Jupiter in with hundreds or potentially thousands of bodies that are so insignificant in our solar system's evolution is straight retarded.

related:
Asteroid found with its own double ring system dazzles astronomers : SCIENCE : Tech Times

I wonder if that obfuscates our definitions even more.

And I think this is pretty neat - High school kids engineering parts of spaceships.
High School 'Final Five' Compete for Out-of-This-World Test on Orion

It's kind of amusing that in many cases, the IAU or other bodies didn't even have definitions for a lot of shit like planets, asteroids and so on. It was just self evident what they were when we only knew of a handful. We're only starting to get an idea of the variety of objects out there, and we're struggling to fit them in to neat categories.

Dutch doctors successfully implant most of a 3D printed skull into woman's head.Medical First: 3-D Printed Skull Successfully Implanted in Woman - NBC News