Largest planet in the solar system could be about to be discovered

[Docfeelgood]

Largest planet in the solar system could be about to be discovered - and it's up to four times the size of Jupiter

Scientists believe they may have found a new planet in the far reaches of the solar system, up to four times the mass of Jupiter.

Its orbit would be thousands of times further from the Sun than the Earth's - which could explain why it has so far remained undiscovered.

Data which could prove the existence of Tyche, a gas giant in the outer Oort Cloud, is set to be released later this year - although some believe proof has already been garnered by Nasa with its pace telescope, Wise, and is waiting to be pored over.
Prof Daniel Whitmire from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette believes the data may prove Tyche's existence within two years.

He told the Independent: 'If it does, [fellow astrophysicist Prof John Matese] and I will be doing cartwheels. And that's not easy at our age.'
He added he believes it will mainly be made of hydrogen and helium, with an atmosphere like Jupiter's, with spots and rings and clouds, adding: 'You'd also expect it to have moons. All the outer planets have them.'

He believes the planet is so huge, it will ahve a raised temperature left from its formation that will make it far higher than others, such as Pluto, at -73C, as 'it takes an object this size a long time to cool off'.
He and Prof Matese first suggested Tyche existed because of the angle comets were arriving, with a fifth of the expected number since 1898 entering higher than expected.

However, Tyche - if it exists - should also dislodge comets closer to home, from the inner Oort Cloud, but they have not been seen.

If confirmed, the status and name of the new planet - which would become the ninth and potentially the largest - would then have to be agreed by the International Astronomical Union.

Currently named Tyche, from the Greek goddess that governed the destiny of a city, its name may have to change, as it originated from a theory which has now been largely abandoned.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...ar-system.html


I find this interesting if to be true.

[Lorizael]

No.

No, there’s no proof of a giant planet in the outer solar system

I’m getting a lot of email and tweets about NASA supposedly having proof of a giant, Jupiter-sized planet orbiting the Sun way beyond Pluto. Let me be clear: while certainly possible, this idea is not at all proven, and in my opinion still pretty unlikely. As usual, this started as a more-or-less accurate media story and is getting inflated as it gets re-reported. As far as I can tell, the original report was in the UK paper The Independent.

Here’s the deal. Two astronomers, John Matese and Dan Whitmire, have theorized about the possibility of a previously-undiscovered planet way beyond Pluto for some time. This is not a crazy idea; we see planets orbiting other stars way out, and there’s other evidence big planets can be pretty far out from the Sun (mind you, evidence does not mean proof). As it happens, there are lots of chunks of ice orbiting the Sun pretty far out as well. Some of these have orbits which bring them into the inner solar system, and we seem them as long-period comets.

What Matese and Whitmire did was wonder how a big planet would affect the orbits of these comets. If you measured enough of them, would you see the effects of the gravity of this planet? They claim you can, and even gave the planet a tentative name: Tyche.

I read their papers, and thought the data were interesting but unconvincing. The sample size was too small. A bigger study was done, but again the effects weren’t quite enough to rise to the level of breakthrough. I’m not saying the astronomers are wrong — the data were certainly provocative, and potentially correct! Just not firm enough.

What I want to see are observations of this planet. And our best hope may be in the NASA satellite WISE — the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, which has scanned the entire sky over the past year or so. A planet in the outer solar system may be warm enough to glow in the IR and be spotted in the WISE data.
The article in The Independent talks about this, saying:

But scientists now believe the proof of its existence has already been gathered by a Nasa space telescope, Wise, and is just waiting to be analysed.
The first tranche of data is to be released in April, and astrophysicists John Matese and Daniel Whitmire from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette think it will reveal Tyche within two years. "If it does, John and I will be doing cartwheels," Professor Whitmire said. "And that’s not easy at our age."

Note that first line: it makes it seem as if the proof of the planet is already in the data. We just need to find it!

But that’s not really the case. This planet may not exist at all. It might, and I’d love for that to be true. But at the moment we just have interesting but inconclusive evidence supporting the idea of a large planet in the deep dark recesses of the solar system. That’s a long way from proof.

I’ll note the popular site Gizmodo has an article on this that starts off well, but then goes even farther than the Independent did: "[Matese and Whitmire] claim that data already captured by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer proves its existence. It only needs to be analyzed… over the next two years".

The Independent said that the astronomers believe the proof is there, but that’s different than actually claiming it’s there. I think the article in The Independent is fairly well-measured, but Gizmodo took it a bit too far. And in either case, I’m quite sure that lay people reading these articles will walk away thinking the planet’s reality is a given.

But at this point, we don’t know. And it’s possible that the planet exists and WISE won’t see it; it may be too dim to spot. There are many variations here. Basically it boils down to only one statement that can be said with certainty: if WISE sees it, it exists. But if it’s not seen in the WISE data, that doesn’t prove anything one way or another; it narrows the possibilities down and gives us an upper limit on how big, distant, and warm the planet might be. But we’d need to keep looking for it.

There’s been a spate of overblown stories dealing with astronomy lately (see Related Posts, below). I think this is a coincidence, but it’s certainly keeping me busy. And I’m still not done yet. Stay tuned.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/02/14/no-theres-no-proof-of-a-giant-planet-in-the-outer-solar-system/

[Docfeelgood]

Oh, well. Time will tell if they were right.
I just find it hard to believe that something so big cannot be seen.

[Lorizael]

Yes.

[MattBowron]

I once heard is that if an ocean was big enough, Saturn would float on it

[Lorizael]

That doesn't make any sense, but I'm guessing you're talking about the fact that gas giants are no where near as dense as rocky plants like Earth.

[MattBowron]

it's what I read in a science book as a kid. A picture-book science book. I probably read it when I was around 6-7. It had an image of Saturn with its rings floating in a hypothetical gigantic ocean. Maybe the writer was being more imaginative then doing actual research. I've just never had that hypothesis verified or not.
In summary: yes, gas giants usually consist of a lot of hydrogen, which is the lightest element known so far. Most of the universe about 98% of it consists of hydrogen apparently.

[Aeson]

Maybe with global warming and the melting ice caps the ocean will be big enough some day to test your hypothesis.

[Lorizael]

it's what I read in a science book as a kid. A picture-book science book. I probably read it when I was around 6-7. It had an image of Saturn with its rings floating in a hypothetical gigantic ocean. Maybe the writer was being more imaginative then doing actual research. I've just never had that hypothesis verified or not.
In summary: yes, gas giants usually consist of a lot of hydrogen, which is the lightest element known so far. Most of the universe about 98% of it consists of hydrogen apparently.

Hydrogen is the lightest element possible, as it consists of just a single proton. There are lighter things, but no lighter elements.

[Lorizael]

Also, no. The universe is not 98% hydrogen. There's a lot of helium thrown in as well. And, if you're counting everything in the universe, the universe is mostly dark matter and dark energy.

[germanos]

That doesn't make any sense, but I'm guessing you're talking about the fact that gas giants are no where near as dense as rocky plants like Earth.

it's what I read in a science book as a kid... Maybe the writer was being more imaginative then doing actual research. I've just never had that hypothesis verified or not.

density of Earth: 5,52. Saturn: 0,71.
So yeah, Saturn would 'float on water'. But Jupiter (1,33), Uranus (1,56) and Neptune (2,47) wouldn't. Yet they are all 'Gas-giants'.

[Lorizael]

Them being gas giants has more to do with their size and composition than density. (Although, of course, density is largely a result of size and composition.)

[germanos]

That makes no sense whatsoever . And you may have noticed the ' ' marks.
The point I wanted to make that planets made of 'lighter' elements may still have a higher density then water.

(And no, I don't want to no in detail how that works and which physical laws are responsible for it.)

[Lorizael]

Gravity.

[Perfection]

I just find it hard to believe that something so big cannot be seen.

An object that far out would receive extremely little light from the sun, remember, this object is thought to be hundreds of times farther out then anything we've observed before.