The Planet that Wouldn't Go Away: The Search For Planet X

Boy talk about an idea that just refuses to go away is this strange fascination with a dark companion, if you would, to the solar system. Be it a brown dwarf, black hole or gas giant, people continue to hold dear the idea that something large and mysterious lives out past the Ort cloud. In a recent IO9 article I was reading about data from the Wise space telescope that is suggesting that NASA supposedly having proof of a giant, Jupiter-sized planet orbiting the Sun way beyond Pluto.

Two astronomers, John Matese and Dan Whitmire have theorized that a planet, one they call Tyche, does indeed exist and they base this on observations of long duration comets. The strange thing about these comets is that each one's orbits have perturbations that can be accounted for if one accepts a gas giant constantly adding little variations.

Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy would like nothing more than for there to be a planet out there but instead of being reactionary, Phil takes a some what more critical stance in his Discovery article here

Large ‘Planet X’ may lurk beyond Pluto

Shaun Saunders sends in another good article from MSNBC. According to a new computer model created by team members from Kobe University in Japan: An unknown world might lurk in the distant reaches of our solar system beyond the orbit of Pluto. A planet much larger than Pluto, possibly as much a 70% the mass of Earth, and could be responsible for some unusual features of the Kuiper Belt.

Ok, I know, hardly new idea! A "planet X" has been the grist for many a science fiction writer, fired the imagination of fans for ages and been the bane for many astro-scientists. And of course now since the International Astronomical Union adopted a new definition recently, it would instead be the largest known "plutoid."

But all kidding aside, according to the article : The Kuiper Belt contains many peculiar features that can't be explained by standard solar system models. One is the highly irregular orbits of some of the belt's members. Some of the largest and most distant bodies in the Kupier belt, have orbits that are so unusual that it is very easy to speculate that a very massive object is responsible. The team members released their in a recent issue of Astrophysical Journal.

Shaun speculates that the situation may be a little more complicated than what is described in the article - there could be a brown dwarf solar twin much further out, with its own planets occasionally coming in closer...

I myself have harbored the notion that Earth's Sol could very well have a brown dwarf as a companion and that Sol was part of a binary pair. If we want to speculate further, Sol might have a singularity as a companion.

Truly we have only just scratched the surface so to speak of the outer reaches of the solar system. Mysteries still abound, and hence - science fiction will continue to have a healthy plot device!

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Planet Projected at Solar System's Edge

Shaun sends in an article that we have all suspected for sometime, that the solar system may contain a large cold body well outside the orbit of Pluto. On Discovery Channel online says that Japanese scientists report calculations using computer simulations seem to indicate the possibility that a yet unknown, planet-class celestial body, measuring 30 percent to 70 percent of the Earth's mass, exists in the outer edges of the solar system. "Planet X" would have an oblong elliptical solar orbit and circle the sun every thousand years, with an estimated orbital radius of approximately 15 to 26 billion kilometers.

Shaun comes to an interesting conclusion that I feel is worthy of some discussion. "I'd put my money on a brown-dwarf companion to our sun, orbiting far out, which may have its own planets."

I have often thought that there was indications that Sol had a companion. I have often read that the Solar System as a whole behaves, as a whole, as if Sol was part of a binary pair. These recent research results seem to prove it out to some degree. Comments?