Post by MCDemuth on Jan 21, 2019 20:05:11 GMT
No Planet Nine? Weird Orbits of Distant Objects May Have Different Explanation
January 21, 2019 08:32am ET
The weirdly clustered orbits of some far-flung bodies in our solar system can be explained without invoking a big, undiscovered "Planet Nine," a new study suggests.
The shepherding gravitational pull could come from many fellow trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) rather than a single massive world, according to the research.
"If you remove Planet Nine from the model, and instead allow for lots of small objects scattered across a wide area, collective attractions between those objects could just as easily account for the eccentric orbits we see in some TNOs," study lead author Antranik Sefilian, a doctoral student in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at Cambridge University in England, said in a statement.
But Planet Nine's existence isn't a slam dunk: Some astronomers think the orbit-shaping tug is more likely coming from many small bodies.
But other solar systems are known to harbor massive disks of material in their outer reaches, Sefilian and Touma noted. And our failure to spot one around our own sun doesn't mean it doesn't exist, they stressed.
"The problem is, when you're observing the disk from inside the system, it's almost impossible to see the whole thing at once. While we don't have direct observational evidence for the disk, neither do we have it for Planet Nine, which is why we're investigating other possibilities," Sefilian said.
"It's also possible that both things could be true — there could be a massive disk and a ninth planet," he added. "With the discovery of each new TNO, we gather more evidence that might help explain their behavior."
Read More Details Here:
www.space.com/43072-planet-nine-unnecessary-solar-system.html
I don't like this news...
I was really hoping that astronomers would really find a new "planet" in our solar system... Discovering new "planets" in our solar system isn't something that happens every day, you know... I know it is still a possibility, but... as time goes on, and we learn so much more, it becomes less and less likely...
With all the mounting evidence in recent years, it did seem like it was going to be a "slam dunk", and that it was just a matter of time, and hopefully it would happen within our lifetimes...