Planet Nine from Outer Space!

[choff]

http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/techandsc ... li=AAggNb9

If found, I propose naming it 'Nemesis'.

[zapkitty]

http://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/techandsc ... li=AAggNb9

If found, I propose naming it 'Nemesis'.

It already has a name: Ix

[Tom Ligon]

I like Nemesis, too. Originally that was proposed for a brown dwarf suspected to be lurking out there.

But they've gotta find it first. That's not an impossible task but it will take a very deliberate effort and some luck to find something that small and dim at that distance. So far all they have is a suspected wake of disturbed comets.

It is possible that we've already seen it and just have not yet identified it in a mountain of data.

[JoeP]

As tough as it is to find, ten times Earth mass almost puts up up in Uranus category. All the more intriguing to me if it isn't a gas giant type planet.

[Tom Ligon]

At that distance out it might be an 'ice giant". That would be more compact. And the surface would likely be as dark grey as a charcoal briquette. Difficult, but not hopeless. They're tracking much smaller comets to infer its existence.

The long view is that you need enough data and you need funds to sift thru it. I think this news may not be all that fresh, but what we're seeing is an attempt to drum up some excitement to generate funds.

[ladajo]

Or... it could be an alien large scale base ship, that is maintaining a barrier between us and the busy interstellar activities of the galactic empire, because we are not yet developed enough emotionally or technologically to join the club.

[Maui]

i.e., Starkiller Base?

[JoeP]

Wait a minute. Could we have detected the Swarm Mother's invasion fleet? Someone let DeltaV know about this thread. Need some input on that.

[krenshala]

If the Swarm Mother's ship is the right distance away, I could see it only (a)periodically occluding ~20% of that stars light.

[93143]

I've got to say, I don't like the idea of calling it Nemesis.

In the first place, Nemesis was supposed to be much further out than this thing; its orbital period would be a couple thousand times as long, and instead of perturbing the Kuiper belt to confuse astronomers with Sedna-like objects, it would perturb the outer edge of the Oort cloud to bombard Earth with comets (hence the name, which is therefore inappropriate for "Planet 9" unless it can be shown to have played a similar role).

In the second place, while the Nemesis hypothesis has been in disfavour lately, I don't think we know for sure that it (or something much more like it than this new planet candidate is) isn't real. It'd be a shame if we actually found it and couldn't call it by its true name because we wasted it on some piddly ice giant 100 times closer to the sun... People on NASASpaceFight have already been complaining that we wasted all the Roman gods on asteroids...

[Tom Ligon]

OK, but here's the thing ... if there is no brown dwarf out there at 1.5 LY, but we can find an icy Neptune out at something like 600 AU, then why waste an absolutely marvelous name?

And at 600 AU, I think that's outside the usual definition of the Kuiper belt, but not into the Oort cloud. If, in fact, it has cleared smaller bodies from that gap, it meets the definition of planet. I would be interesting if it is actually a shepherding influence that created the Kuiper belt.

[choff]

I like Nemesis, I sort of want it to have this highly elliptical orbit that brings closer to the sun than Mercury every 10,000 years. Dragging an enormous train of comets on a civilization destroying direct path with earth. It gives me this warm fuzzy feeling I only get from reading 'Worlds in Collision'.

[DeltaV]

Wait a minute. Could we have detected the Swarm Mother's invasion fleet? :idea: Someone let DeltaV know about this thread. Need some input on that.

My story diverged from our timeline/universe when I had Marguur'eketok'k order the Master of Weapons to destroy the Dawn probe at Ceres, thereby painting myself into a corner w.r.t. taking cues from this reality. To blend Planet Nine and KIC8462852 into the story I'd have to figure out a plausible way to merge it back to here/now, or vice-versa. No spare time at present for that.

[paperburn1]

No Problem, I will reject your reality and substitute may own.

[DeltaV]

As long as you can still distinguish relative reality from absolute reality, you should do fine.