Great stuff.

Mike Brown does have form in this area - he and his colleagues discovered Eris [see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eris_%28dwarf_planet%29] and some other minor outer worlds. That said, it still now needs verification by others, including by the Hubble Space Telescope although it'll only be a bright dot though.

A short video.

http://www.livescience.com/53432-pla...net-video.html

Seen it now. What needs to happen now is that the likely orbital paths of this supposed planet ought to be calculated so that Earth and space based telescopes can look at the likely orbital bands to see if they can find something.

Interestingly, Neptune was discovered because of its gravitational effect on Uranus and this new body would not be inconsistent with some theories about the formation and development of the early solar system: Was a Fifth Giant Planet Expelled from Our Solar System?

Just read this. Wow!

Am I correct in thinking that this would not meet the definition of planet under the IAU regulations?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAU_definition_of_planet

It hasn't "cleared the neighbourhood".

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleari..._neighbourhood:


I'd should think that definition applies to 'Planet Nine'.

Please let them name it Mondas

Apparently, the Subaru Telescope (with an 8.2 metre diameter main mirror) at the Mauna Kea observatory site in Hawaii is now being used to look for this proposed planet.

If it is found, it will probably look something like this https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...RC2004-14d.jpg because of the great distance involved. Nevertheless, that will be very useful because the reflected sunlight from that object can be used for spectroscopic analysis to determine what the composition of the surface or atmosphere is depending upon what type of planet it is.

That technique is has already proved its worth because it has already indicated that Eris has a surface composition similar to that of Pluto as we can see here: http://www.gemini.edu/images/stories...05-14/fig2.gif (2003 UB313 being the original designation of Eris prior to it being given a formal name).

It wouldn't actually be the tenth planet, evenif you include Pluto. The first few asteroids also had the designation for a while.

damn

The Gaian Bottleneck - such a cheerful little theory.

http://phys.org/news/2016-01-aliens-...eyre-dead.html

http://news.discovery.com/space/alie...hem-160121.htm

The paper.

http://adi.life/pubs/ChopraLineweaver2016.pdf

How about Boryabollakov, after the astronomer who spent ten years studying deepest dark space and then realised he had forgotten to take the lens cap off.

See five planets at once

Six actually.

Plenty of stories today.

http://phenomena.nationalgeographic....ing-questions/

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2...tures-science/

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/scienc...ion-180957901/

http://www.livescience.com/53456-ali...i-paradox.html

That composite of a possible ice volcano on Pluto was truly breathtaking.

Science at it's very best.

Indeed - when I think of the images available when I got my first telescope at 11, what we can see now is incredible.

There's a really good article from Mike Wall of space.com that's worth reading:

How Astronomers Could Actually See 'Planet Nine'
"That corresponds to about 50 nights of observations using a powerful instrument such as the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii...The researchers will likely use Subaru to narrow in on more promising possible locations, now that Batygin and Brown have given them a better idea of where to look"

More on the 'Assassin' and the possible use of Holographic microscope in the hunt for life on Europa.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2...ker-astronomy/

http://www.livescience.com/53455-ali...icroscope.html

It is a good idea to be on the other side of the galaxy when a mofo like that decides to blow up.

You want some scary news now - this puppy, Betelgeuse, is only 643 light years away and it's going to go BANG! one day (it might already have done so) and for a brief while, there will be two suns in the sky: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...night-day.html

Now back to Planet Nine with this piece from Emily Lakdawalla:

Theoretical evidence for an undiscovered super-Earth at the edge of our solar system
The potential ninth planet is described in a paper written by Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown that provides a theoretical explanation for how such a distant planet could perturb the Kuiper belt object orbits into their present shapes, sizes, and orientations.

If that planet does exist and, on average, it turns out to be 400 times further away from the Sun than the Earth (and about 10x further away than Pluto), that means a New Horizons-type probe would take 90 years or so to get there.

That raises all sorts of questions about component reliability, power systems, etc. I don't think it's feasible to visit this supposed new planet with current propulsion technology so I'd like to see some theoretical research done to see if that timescale can be brought right down, e.g. using VASIMR engines powered by large radioisotope thermoelectric generators.

I haven't even had a chance to see this yet, it's too bloody cloudy.

There are a couple of new, good articles about the need to be cautious when it comes to trying to identify new planets:

A New Planet or a Red Herring?
This long history of missed predictions and overconfidence haunts the astronomers who have proposed Planet Nine’s existence.

Planet 9: Claims about new planets that turned out to be wrong – and why this might be different
There’s a real buzz among planetary scientists after a new study suggested that an unseen planet, dubbed “Planet Nine”, of about ten times the Earth’s mass could be lurking in the Kuiper belt, a band of icy objects beyond Neptune. The latest theory was put forward after scientists noticed that six objects in the belt were behaving strangely, something that they said could be explained by the existence of a new planet.

As we can see here CLICK!, Mike Brown has form in discovering far distant worlds in this solar system (three dozen to date) so there is some cause for optimism about Planet Nine.

It's interesting that Brown's team were also the ones who discovered Eris, which led to Pluto losing its status as a planet. If Planet Nine is discovered it might go some way towards people fully accepting what is and what isn't a planet. He's like a 21st century Crocodile Dundee!