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ABSTRACT: It has been proposed that mean motion resonances (MMRs) between Planet Nine and distant objects of the scattered disk might inform the semimajor axis and instantaneous position of Planet Nine. Within the context of this hypothesis, the specific distribution of occupied MMRs largely determines the available constraints. Here we characterize the behavior of scattered Kuiper Belt objects arising in the presence of an eccentric Planet Nine (0.1 < e < 0.7), focusing on relative sizes of populations occupying particular commensurabilities. Highlighting the challenge of predicting the exact MMR of a given object, we find that the majority of resonant test particles have period ratios with Planet Nine other than those of the form P9/Ptno = N/2 or N/1. Taking into account the updated prior distribution of MMRs outlined in this work, we find that the close spacing of high-order resonances, as well as chaotic transport, preclude resonance-based Planet Nine constraints from current observational data. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tomruen (talk • contribs) 01:44, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
  • It a draft, so can't be used here yet. But an interesting read. The conclusions end with "Thus, in addition to its unprecedented nature among planets in the solar system, the large eccentricity of Planet Nine currently postpones precise prediction of its position." to sum it up. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here) 02:07, 10 September 2018 (UTC)
Published in Astronomical Journal Agmartin (talk) 15:41, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure there's anything new here, but a good summary, and reminds us of the big danger, detection bias. Tom Ruen (talk) 14:44, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

This Is Why Most Scientists Think Planet Nine Doesn't Exist Ethan Siegel, Sept 14, 2018

Alternative Suggestions - Galactic Tides?

Bannister suggests that the orbit of TNOs randomly walk in and out over time through a process called diffusion – if Neptune happens to be nearby when these objects make their closest approach to the Sun, its gravity can give them a little bump – just enough to hook them into the galactic tide and pull them away.

From this link J mareeswaran (talk) 05:15, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Never heard of the Galactic tides theory before J mareeswaran (talk) 05:16, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

It was mentioned in their paper about 2013 SY99. It is an explanation for the raised perihelia of some of the objects, though not for Sedna or 2012 VP113 see figure 5, but not for the alignment if that is not due to observational bias. Agmartin (talk) 17:06, 25 September 2018 (UTC)
Got It! Thanks!
So diffusion (Random Walk) seems to be a sub-explanation under Observation Bias J mareeswaran (talk) 18:12, 25 September 2018 (UTC)
It's one of a number of explanation for objects with high perihelia. Some with smaller semi-axis could be explained by Kozai oscillations while in resonance with some drift after escape from resonance. 2013 SY99's inclination is to small and its semi-major axis is too large for that, so diffusion was proposed as an alternate explanation that would also work for those. Looking at fig 5 mentioned above 2015 TG387's orbit could also be explained by diffusion, although its semimajor axis does change much in the simulations run for the paper announcing its discovery. Diffusion would not work for Sedna and 2012 VP113, however. Agmartin (talk) 16:03, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

OK, not so soon(ish)

Spotted this back in January: Mike Brown @plutokiller 5 hours ago

As of yesterday(!) we now have statistically rigorous calculations of best fit orbit and mass of P9 and, critically, uncertainties on all of these parameters. Along with that comes a rigorous calculation of a probability that that is no P9: 0.01% (papers with all of the details coming soon[ish] to an arXiv near you) https://twitter.com/plutokiller/status/955099713308475392 Agmartin (talk) 21:03, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Today there is this:

Mike Brown @plutokiller

New Planet Nine paper just submitted to a scientific journal. When do you get to see it? First, it goes to a scientific editor who sends it out for peer review. Finding someone to do timely peer review the month of August is never easy, but with luck we might get review ...

... back in a month. We then respond to reviewers comments and, depending on how critical the comments were, it might go back to the reviewers. So best case is that maybe it is accepted for publication mid-September. Worst is, I don't know, December? It can be a long process ...

... but, with luck, it will lead to a paper even better than the one originally submitted.

I'll give the teaser though: the paper is super cool. It helps us both confirm that Planet Nine is almost certainly out there, and it helps us to pinpoint the orbital path of Planet Nine, so we will know where to look this fall. Stay tuned!
— https://twitter.com/plutokiller/status/1024322174411100161

Agmartin (talk) 16:48, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

update:

Mike Brown @plutokiller

The journey of a scientific paper, part 2. We submitted the paper back at the end of July, and just got back the reviews. A bit slow, but, you know, August happened. So now we read the peer review and decide what we think.Mike Brown added...

...This review is typical: parts of the paper just need some clarifying, which is pretty easy, but there is at least one important question a reviewer asks that I can't answer without some extra analysis. it's a good question and I hadn't clearly focused on...

...So, with luck, it'll be just a couple of days of analysis, a rewrite and back to review. Then we start all over again, but I think this round will quickly come to conclusion. So maybe November? Always a little hard to guess.
— https://twitter.com/plutokiller/status/1047515040893435904

Agmartin (talk) 21:49, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

Paper was mentioned in Mindscape Episode 11: Mike Brown @plutokiller on Killing Pluto and Replacing It with Planet 9. Around 1:07:30 he estimates mass of ~7 M_earth, semi-major axis ~500 AU, inclination 10 - 20 degrees, odds of clustering being random at 0.14% in the new analysis of biases. Agmartin (talk) 22:31, 27 August 2018 (UTC)

A New High Perihelion Inner Oort Cloud Object

New paper about 2015 TG387. Agmartin (talk) 16:38, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

An interesting point in this (Sheppard/Tujillo/Tholen/Kaib 2018) paper is the idea that Planet Nine might be on a retrograde orbit:

‘We also found that in most of the dynamical simulations with planet X, some 2015 TG387 clones became retrograde while still being in a stable orbit in resonance with the hypothesized planet […] This also suggests the distant planet itself could be on a retrograde orbit. To test this theory, we reran all of our simulations that involved Planet X, but this time put the distant planet on a retrograde orbit, with all other variables being the same […] We found that 2015 TG387 behaves very similar to a retrograde Planet X as it does to a prograde Planet X […] 2015 TG387 continues to be stable and confined in longitude of perihelion and argument of perihelion angles even with a retrograde Planet X. We found this true for all the ETNOs.’
— https://arxiv.org/abs/1810.00013

Assscroft (talk) 04:24, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

From the article on the verge: “We’ve covered about 30 percent of the prime area, and we hope by the end of this year, we’ll have covered 60 to 70 percent of that prime area,” says Sheppard.
This from Scientific American: Newfound World “The Goblin” May Lead to Mysterious Planet Nine. Rowan Forest (talk) 22:55, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

From the DPS conference

Simon Porter @AscendingNode

@StephHamy820: Have about 1/3 of Dark Energy Survey to search for TNOs, enough to build a survey simulator and understand bias. Four objects found work a>250 AU, well beyond Neptune, 3/4 clustered, one weird one with very high inclination. #DPS18 6:29 AM - 24 Oct 2018

Combined with other surveys ("goblin not included"), can't reject the null hypothesis that ETNOs are uniformly distributed (i.e. not requiring a distant giant planet)

https://twitter.com/AscendingNode/status/1055090030157484032

Mike Alexandersen @Mikea1985

.@StephHamy820 Cannot reject the null hypothesis that Extreme TNOs originate from a uniform underlying distribution. Planet 9/X is thus not necessary (although they did not try to reject it either). #DPS18

https://twitter.com/Mikea1985/status/1055090218821402626

Christa Van Laerhoven @K04PB2B

S. Hamilton: Dark Energy Survey (DES) now has a functioning survey simulator, used this to look at extreme trans-Neptunian objects. #DPS18

S. Hamilton (.@StephHamy820): using DES, OSSOS, and Sheppard&Trujillo surveys, cannot reject the null hypothesis that ETNOs originate from a uniform underlying distribution #DPS18

https://twitter.com/K04PB2B/status/1055090037874933766 Agmartin (talk) 17:09, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

And Ethan Siegal has a new article about Planet Nine including an interview with Michelle Bannister: Solar System Scientists Aren't Convinced That Planet Nine Exists Agmartin (talk) 17:25, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Dynamical Analysis of Three Distant Trans-Neptunian Objects with Similar Orbits

New paper describing three objects potentially affected by Planet Nine

This paper reports the discovery and orbital characterization of two extreme trans-Neptunian objects (ETNOs), 2016 QV89 and 2016 QU89, which have orbits that appear similar to that of a previously known object, 2013 UH15. All three ETNOs have semi-major axes a≈172 AU and eccentricities e≈0.77. The angular elements (i,ω,Ω) vary by 6, 15, and 49 deg, respectively between the three objects. The angular elements (i,ω,Ω) vary by 6, 15, and 49 deg, respectively between the three objects. The two new objects add to the small number of TNOs currently known to have semi-major axes between 150 and 250 AU, and serve as an interesting dynamical laboratory to study the outer realm of our Solar System. Using a large ensemble of numerical integrations, we find that the orbits are expected to reside in close proximity in the (a,e) phase plane for roughly 100 Myr before diffusing to more separated values. We then explore other scenarios that could influence their orbits. With aphelion distances over 300 AU, the orbits of these ETNOs extend far beyond the classical Kuiper Belt, and an order of magnitude beyond Neptune. As a result, their orbital dynamics can be affected by the proposed new Solar System member, referred to as Planet Nine in this work. With perihelion distances of 35-40 AU, these orbits are also influenced by resonant interactions with Neptune. A full assessment of any possible, new Solar System planets must thus take into account this emerging class of TNOs.

Agmartin (talk) 22:08, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Just to add to this: The two new objects (2016 QU89 and 2016 QV89) now have been officially announced by the MPC today, see here and here. Renerpho (talk) 08:25, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Just thought I'd mention

That I think this article's probably ready for FA consideration. Serendipodous 18:54, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

I agree. It evolved from mambo-jambo technical nightmare to an interesting article. Cheers, Rowan Forest (talk) 22:25, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
I have been working through some FAC required fixes before the nomination. To finish up, can somebody please add the missing alt attributes to the various images? See WP:FAC which links to this tool. I need to get my beauty rest tonight. Jehochman Talk 02:53, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
Done. Serendipodous 12:34, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

What's cooking?

Mike Brown has been quiet for 35 days. There's a paper in review and I'm wondering if there's something significant brewing. Has anybody seen or heard any recent news about how the search is going? Jehochman Talk 02:52, 12 November 2018 (UTC)

Mike Brown @plutokiller 2h2 hours ago Hi twitterworld -- I took 6 whole weeks off from here and all news sources to preserve my sanity. With luck it perhaps worked. I see no one has found Planet Nine during my hiatus, so I'll get to it. https://twitter.com/plutokiller/status/1062016504617558022 Agmartin (talk) 18:29, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
If it's found, would we hear about it right away? Wouldn't multiple observations be need to pin down the orbit and thus establish where and what it was? Jehochman Talk 02:07, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
If they found something moving at the right rate I think taking its spectra would reveal if they found a planet or a star with similar proper motion. Any delay would be due waiting for telescope time, I recall one of them joking in an interview that they would go to a telescope and beat up the people using it. Though I doubt that would be necessary, who wouldn't want their name on the discovery paper? Agmartin (talk) 16:22, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
The issue is so hot, we'll probably hear it from a Tweet or a filing in arXiv. I reckon peer-review and confirmation would take a little longer. Rowan Forest (talk) 02:11, 13 November 2018 (UTC)
Not a whole lot longer though. The signatures would be rather obvious, and a discovery paper would likely be "SEE IT'S THERE" + coordinates + orbit + basic spectra (maybe). Doesn't take a whole lot of time to review, and that would be prioritized liked crazy. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:46, 13 November 2018 (UTC)

Image help

Whoever is good at dealing with images, could you address these featured article candidacy concerns?

Image review

  • File:Planet nine path in orion2.png: suggest scaling up this image in the article
  • File:Planet_Nine_comparison.jpg: on what datasource is this based? Same with File:Planet_nine-etnos_now-new3.png, File:Planet_nine-etnos_now-close-new.png, File:Tilting_of_Laplace_Plane_by_Planet_Nine.png

Thanks! Jehochman Talk 15:58, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

On the last, Secular_evolution_of_eTNOs_induced_by_Planet_Nine.png, the image itself is mine. I created it by picking out and plotting some points from the figures of Beust's, and Batygin and Morbidelli's papers (3 or 4 for each curve) then adding in some others and fudging a bit to get the curves to look roughly like the originals. Not having uploaded images to wikipedia commons before I read all the copyright stuff and saw how paranoid they appeared to be. The remark is me being overly cautious considering how many images I've see on wikipedia that are clearly borrowed from news articles. I've removed that query. Agmartin (talk) 20:41, 10 December 2018 (UTC)
For Tilting_of_Laplace_Plane_by_Planet_Nine.png Planet Nine's orbit is what I calculated the original proposed orbit (e=0.6, i=30 degrees) would look like viewed from about 30 degrees above the plane of the Solar System. The angle of the Laplace plane was picked to keep the lines and curves separate, it varies with the semimajor axes of the objects. Agmartin (talk) 21:24, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

History

There is now an awful lot of non Planet Nine material the reader has to go past to get to Planet Nine. Much of it reads as random bits spliced together and the rest would be better placed in the see also article listed at the top of the section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Agmartin (talk • contribs) 00:58, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

We can chop out whatever is unneeded and drop it in Planets beyond Neptune. Jehochman Talk 01:41, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
It seems all Planet Nine material to me. And the summary and initial sections are good all-reader stuff before the tougher theoretical science. The contents box gets you where you want to go so no one should be stuck in non-P9 limbo. Mostly the article is about the search for the hypothetical Planet Nine, and that is fair considering the topic. Obviously, if/when the planet is found, the article will need to change. For now, it could be tidier (yes some spliced bits and bobs here), but I'd be interested to know what people thought was choppable or ... dumpable-elsewhere-able. Some, naturally. Assscroft (talk) 04:24, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
Assscroft, it seems your statement here is contradictory to itself. Is it "all Planet Nine material" or "non-P9 limbo"? Leitmotiv (talk) 22:01, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
I'm lost. If there are things that need improvement, please point them out. Jehochman Talk 22:13, 12 December 2018 (UTC)
I'm in favor of trimming the article and moving peripheral info to daughter articles. I reckon that the subject and research is dynamic and ongoing, but it has to be both focused and understandable to people with a high school diploma. Good job by the main editors to achieving the "Good Article" standard. Cheers, Rowan Forest (talk) 22:07, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

fun read

https://twitter.com/plutokiller/status/1071980277570752513 71.197.186.255 (talk) 10:48, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

CMB Surveys

Already covered in the article, but if anyone is interested there is a new article discussing this on arxiv. Agmartin (talk) 16:16, 21 December 2018 (UTC)

Feature article discussion

I just found where the modifications requested by the group reviewing the article for feature article status were being discussed. I'll try to address some of them, though with the holidays and another online project I've been working on recently that may take some time. Agmartin (talk) 20:36, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

Sadly, they archived the discussion just as the article was close to ready. We need to get at least one or two independent editors to agree to support the nomination, and then start a new discussion at WP:FAC. Jehochman Talk 23:37, 23 December 2018 (UTC)

Naming?

Why not name it "Melancholia"? As far as I remember the movie, Melancholia was an Ice Giant from outside the Solar System... a free floating planet. A planet that orbits the sun that far out surely is very "lonely" and maybe melancholic ;=) --2A04:4540:7004:FA00:F4D5:17DC:AAAC:C1BF (talk) 00:48, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

Melancholia_(2011_film)

Planet X confusion

Right now, this topic is differentiated from Planet X at the beginning of the article. This is confusing, since Planet X is considered the preferred term for it by some, and that name is heavily used in the media, too. See NASA, astronomy.com, Astronomy Now and The Independent, just to name a few. Science Magazine even identifies it with the original Planet X, by stating that there has been a "century long search for a Planet X beyond Neptune".
I do not suggest to rename this article Planet X - the current name is the principle one - but saying that it "should not be confused with Planet X" is too simple. Renerpho (talk) 06:22, 18 November 2018 (UTC)

It's not Wikipedia's job to cater to the media's mistakes. Planet X and Planet Nine are completely different concepts, and Planet X has been disproven, while Planet Nine has not. Serendipodous 09:24, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
The evidence observed, the assumptions and the lines of reasoning for each planet were different, and took place in different contexts. That is why they have different names. Rowan Forest (talk) 16:11, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
It's not the media's fault. There is disagreement over the name.[1] Renerpho (talk) 07:41, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
It's also not Wikipedia's job to cater to Alan Stern's endless personal crusade. Serendipodous 11:09, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
The Planet X article could be renamed Dwarf Planet X since Pluto was found as a result. (ducks and runs away) Agmartin (talk) 22:07, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
Planet X and Planet Nine are different concepts, so it's appropriate to state that one should not be confused with the other. JeanLucMargot (talk) 00:33, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
I don't disagree that the original Planet X and the new Planet Nine are different concepts. I just say that the term "Planet X" is ambiguous, and often refers to the new hypothetical planet. And not just in the media, but in publications by reliable sources. You will find more articles on NASA's website calling it Planet X than articles where it's called Planet Nine. All I ask for is avoid the sentence "Not to be confused with Planet X." when it is often called just that (and not by accident). Wikipedia should reflect that situation, not play trend setter. Renerpho (talk) 08:08, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
Please provide links to reliable sources, not mere assertions that they might exist. This will help resolve the debate. Jehochman Talk 12:21, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

I gave links to multiple examples already. Here they are again. Those are chosen arbitrarily, mostly from the first page of a Google search for "Planet X": NASA (with their rationale why they do not use the name "Planet Nine"), astronomy.com, Astronomy Now, The Independent, Science Magazine. If this was just Alan Stern's personal crusade (which, just to make that clear, I find ridiculous; I have no problem with Pluto not being a planet, in fact I don't care about that), then I would also just try to ignore it. But if NASA isn't a reliable source, then what is?
To avoid misunderstandings: I have absolutely no problem with calling the hypothetical planet Planet Nine. All I say is that some do, and that I think the article as it is now doesn't properly account for that. Renerpho (talk) 15:51, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I don't think the article needs any change in wording. From an objective standpoint, whether you agree with Brown and Batygin's stance on the definition of "planet", they named this hypothetical object Planet Nine. So when discussing it in an official and encyclopedic capacity, that's what it should be called. Any person or article referring to it by a different name is either choosing to do so for personal reasons or does so by mistake. 134340Goat (talk) 19:36, 19 November 2018 (UTC)

In this case, NASA's position is overwhelmed by the vast majority of peer reviewed scientific papers. Pop culture sources carry very little weight on this topic, just about none. Please read this featured article: Planets beyond Neptune. It says that Planet Nine is not the Planet X envisioned by earlier theories. These are different hypotheses and should not be confused. Jehochman Talk 02:12, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
Does this change help clarify things? Jehochman Talk 14:25, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
Jehochman is this the discussion you were talking about? Because I see nothing here requiring clarification in the lede about a specific need for identifying the hypothesis as also needing additional "hypothetical characteristics" for clarification. In fact, I see someone saying the wording is just fine. Remember, specifics can be fleshed out in the body of the article and aren't necessary in the lede which is just an introduction. "Hypothetical planet" accomplishes an awful lot and it doesn't need to be precise in the very first sentence of the article, nor the entire lede. Leitmotiv (talk) 07:23, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
I think it makes things more confusing. It implies there is another Planet X that wasn't hypothesised by Lowell. Which begs the question, where is the article on that? Serendipodous 15:48, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
I'd be happy with it as it is now. Renerpho (talk) 14:22, 22 November 2018 (UTC)
The Planet X hypothesized by Lowell is linked from the "not to be confused with" statement. It is a section in Planets beyond Neptune. A distinguishing feature of Planet X is that it was supposed to be responsible for wobbles in Uranus, and thus, would have been about 6 earth masses at a distance of 45-50 AU. The Planet Nine hypothesis predicts a similar sized planet, but much further away, with a rather extreme orbit that's elliptical and inclined. Jehochman Talk 17:04, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Planet X now mentions Planet Nine, and the disambiguation page Planet X (disambiguation) gives the primary meaning (Lowell's planet) followed by the "extended" meaning (any hypothetical trans-neptunian planet, including Planet Nine). Thanks to Serendipodous for both edits! I think this should solve the problem. Renerpho (talk) 22:25, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

I made those edits so we wouldn't have to alter the hatnote. But we altered the hatnote anyway. Serendipodous 21:33, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

To add some circumstantial evidence: Scott Sheppard refers to it as Planet X, which is sometimes also called Planet 9.[2] Renerpho (talk) 00:06, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Sheppard's Planet X is not necessarily the same as B&B's Planet 9. See the alternative planet proposals in the article, including Sheppard and Trujillo. Planet X is sometimes used as a general term for an hypothesised planet, but Planet 9 is one specific proposal. Malhotra and de la Fuentes Marcos are other Planet Xs intended to explain Sedna and friends, but they're not Planet 9. Tbayboy (talk) 12:55, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

I move that we avoid this controversy by renaming the article Planet Eleventy!!! (j/k) Agmartin (talk) 18:50, 20 December 2018 (UTC)

Estimated mass

This article claims P9's estimated mass is at least 10 Earth masses. As per Mike Brown's tweet about an hour ago, more recent estimates suggest around 6 Earth masses. Any objections to updating the article to reflect that? 134340Goat (talk) 13:02, 8 December 2018 (UTC)

Tweets aren’t the best sources. Brown has a paper coming out shortly. I suggest waiting for it. Jehochman Talk 14:11, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
Ha! I just saw that too! Also [3] "mass=6 earth masses; semimajor axis between ~300 and ~500 AU (we argue about it constantly). inclination ~20 degrees.", and [4] (best bet semimajor axis) "380" AU. Tom Ruen (talk) 14:20, 8 December 2018 (UTC)
Hmm, I remember one paper showed that for objects with semimajor axes larger than 1000 AU the neutral point where the perihelion distance was stable dropped to 40 AU. I wonder if this happens at a lower semimajor axis when Planet Nine's semimajor axis is dropped down to 380 AU. Maybe it will fix the problem with most eTNOs not having perihelion distances between 50 AU and 70 AU. Agmartin (talk) 19:25, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

The entire tweet thread of Q+As for that bored night at the telescope is just generally a good summation of the current start of affairs: https://twitter.com/plutokiller/status/1071358857471913986 Assscroft (talk) 02:03, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

As per Konstantin Batygin's tweet from a few minutes ago, the new paper that will be on Arxiv by the end of January contains "a notable change in P9 mass/orbit".[5] So, that's what Mike Brown was referring to. The tweets are interesting, but I think an update to the Wikipedia article can wait till the paper is online and we can look at the details.Renerpho (talk) 03:32, 31 December 2018 (UTC)
Remembering some of what Mike Brown tweeted a few weeks ago, I think they might find it before the paper is published. Agmartin (talk) 18:51, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

Somebody who knows told me he paper will say: closer, more like ~400-500AU and mass –smaller, more like ~6 earth masses. Jehochman Talk 21:00, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Good. We can change the figures in the articles as soon as the arxiv is online, - or, less likely, somebody finds the real thing... Renerpho (talk) 07:40, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Shepherding in a Self-Gravitating Disk of Trans-Neptunian Objects

Brought back from the talk archive:

New paper appears to be claiming that a massive disk with modest and varying eccentricity can produce a cluster of objects anti-aligned to it by preventing their precession. I think that's what they are claiming at least. Agmartin (talk) 17:20, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Looking at it more closely, the points with no precession are the neutral position at the centers of the curves which they plot in a different manner than Batygin and Brown did. In this article their disk is co-planar with the planets. Agmartin (talk) 21:23, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Recently accepted by Astrophysical Journal according to the comment with the latest version on arxiv posted a week ago. I've been waiting to see how likely a disk is to end up with the required eccentricity before adding a mention of this as an alternate hypothesis. Hopefully it will be commented on by one of the pros once it is published. Agmartin (talk) 21:36, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Daniel Fischer @cosmos4u @plutokiller @kbatygin Seems the anti-Planet-Nine paper "Shepherding in a Self-Gravitating Disk of Trans-Neptunian Objects" - https://arxiv.org/abs/1804.06859 - will come out in AJ in a few days, accompanied by a British press release. 1:42 PM - 18 Jan 2019 https://twitter.com/cosmos4u/status/1086378309120860160 Agmartin (talk) 20:35, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Extension of FAC Review

  • The inclination instability occurs in a disk of particles in eccentric orbits around a massive object. – as you are talking about a specific inclination instability, it makes sense and would be clearer to directly name the "massive object". Is it the sun?
    Fixed. [6] Jehochman Talk 00:00, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
  • Alternate hypotheses: Object in lower-eccentricity orbit. I wonder why this possibility is not termed "Planet Nine" also? Does "Planet Nine" has to have a high-eccentricity orbit per definition? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 11:43, 1 January 2019 (UTC)
    As Mike Brown has explained, they are predicting not any planet, but exactly this one. Finding a large planet in a circular distant orbit would mean their prediction was a failure, because such an orbit cannot produce the clustering of distant objects they observe. Given that the term "Planet Nine" was coined by the Brown team, it refers to this planet only, and all other hypothetical distant planets are summed up under the "Planet X" term.Renerpho (talk) 20:58, 1 January 2019 (UTC)
    Yes, the Planet Nine hypothesis is based on a specific set of predictions. Brown has said repeatedly that if something is found that doesn't match their predictions, it's not Planet Nine. Clarified right at the start. [7] and in the section you mention. [8] Jehochman Talk 00:00, 2 January 2019 (UTC)
  • I would remove the headings "Trujillo and Sheppard (2014)" and "de la Fuente Marcos et al. (2014)", this is non-standard. If you would like to keep headings here, they should be descriptive instead.
    Fixed. [9]
  • The article contains both American English (e.g., "analyzed") and British English (e.g., "theorised"). This should be uniform, and the spelling used in the original state of the article needs to be retained according to the established rules. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 11:49, 1 January 2019 (UTC)
    I'm going to switch to American because the primary scientists are American. Done. [10] I scanned for all the common differences. There are a few British spellings in the referenced article titles, but those are Royal Society publications, so I assume British spelling is correct for them. Jehochman Talk 00:00, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

Something that hasn't been mentioned but I think might be useful for readers: try to find popular articles that came out shortly after the later technical articles and add citations to them where possible. Agmartin (talk) 19:13, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

Speaking as the guy who nominated it, I can root for both. Serendipodous 23:56, 13 January 2019 (UTC)
It will be a barrel of laughs to have them both candidates at the same time! Jehochman Talk 00:15, 14 January 2019 (UTC)
I went through the archived FAC discussion last week, I think most of what was mentioned has now been addressed. Let's go for it. Agmartin (talk) 19:23, 13 January 2019 (UTC)
Work to do

@Agmartin: I have taken the trivial step of adding FindPlanetNine.com to the new External Links section. Would you like to run through the article and swap out as many SPS sources as you quickly can for peer reviewed academic papers. Whatever can't be done quickly, leave to me and I will chip away at them. Jehochman Talk 02:16, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

I took care of a bunch of those that went to find-planet-nine and some others, one I left because its currently the only source of updated orbital elements, currently number 63 which will be replaced when the new paper comes out later this month, another is Brown's opinion about whether P9 is a planet, why quote someone else quoting Brown when you can just quote Brown? There are some others , number 2 will be a hassle because it's used in so many places. Agmartin (talk) 18:13, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
I tackled some of the short paragraphs and filled in missing cite parameters. If you can chisel away at the long list of cites to the Find P9 blog by substituting existing sites, that may also be useful. We don't exactly know the threshold for what number is acceptable. I have pinged Squeamish Ossifrage and asked them to have another look. Continuing to reduce reliance on SPS will increase the chance of getting their support. I prefer you do this because you are more expert at the topic than I am. Jehochman Talk 20:27, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
I think have the find P9 references down to: where it is in the sky, its magnitude, and B&B's searches of previous observation, (most from the same blog entry) plus its longitudes of ascending node and perihelion. The last could be replaced with the original values or left until the new paper is released. The others may by in some news article but I don't know which. Agmartin (talk) 22:16, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
Found a reference to previous searches and its estimated magnitude in B&B's second paper, so now I thinks its down to references to its location in the sky (I think the one that is in the caption to an image should stay) and the updated orbital elements which I don't believe I've seen elsewhere. Agmartin (talk) 22:35, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
Brought over from Feature Article Candidate Discussion:
Comments by Squeamish Ossifrage (2)
"References: Can you explain how you decide what goes in a note vs. what is put in the references as a long quote? I'm not saying that what you've done is wrong, but I'm just trying to make sure there's a process."
As far as I know there is has been no discussion of what goes into a note or as a quote in the reference, and it depended on who was adding them. Any suggestions as to what the policy should be? Agmartin (talk) 20:42, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
I can apply simple logic. If there's a reference, and we are taking a verbatim quote from the reference, then use reference with quote parameter. If we are explaining some little detail, we can insert a note, which might include a reference. For instance, we might provide the equation for Kepler's Law to explain briefly why objects move slower at aphelion than perihelion. Jehochman Talk 21:31, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
"A note is a footnote-type explanation that is more than just a direct quote." All the existing notes look good, except for Note N which needs to be converted to a reference. I can't do it because I don't know which paper it's referencing. Perhaps you know? Jehochman Talk 21:36, 17 January 2019 (UTC)
N is a quote someone added from B&B's first paper, I've removed it since the last sentence of the paragragh makes it redundant. Agmartin (talk) 21:49, 17 January 2019 (UTC)


Does TNO refer to extreme trans-Neptunian objects or to trans-Neptunian objects (if to this why do we not say this (as far as I can tell) anywhere?))?Slatersteven (talk) 17:43, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Also as we have eTNO in the lead why not replace all instances of extreme trans-Neptunian objects with eTNO? There seems be be something of an inconstancy in approach here.Slatersteven (talk) 17:47, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Good catch. Agmartin is working on fixing these. I will wait for him to finish to avoid edit conflicts. Jehochman Talk 18:34, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
Do the skeptical group of scientists (proponents of accidental clustering), use the term eTNO or some other term? If yes, then, do we need to make a note of differing conventions? J mareeswaran (talk) 10:54, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
@Leitmotiv, Assscroft, Tomruen, Oerjan, J mareeswaran, BatteryIncluded, and Smkolins: Any comments? Agmartin (talk) 20:32, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
I generally don't read much into the rest of the article beyond the History section. My specific interest in this article is accessibility to readers with encyclopedic interests which is why I have spent so much time reworking the lede and mostly just the lede. I just fixed up a redundancy in the lede regarding AUs. It looks like a lot of work has been done on the article, but I cannot comment on the quality of it without reading it. Leitmotiv (talk) 20:52, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Layperson prose review

No question is unworthy. Jehochman Talk 19:35, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Pull

"gravity could explain the unlikely clustering of orbits for a group of extreme trans-Neptunian objects (eTNOs)," I assume gravitational pull?Slatersteven (talk) 17:10, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

I can try to clarify that. Jehochman Talk 19:35, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
Black hole

Was it not once hypothesized there was a black hole out that way?Slatersteven (talk)

Only in fringe sources. The gravity from a black hole would cause huge issues if one were near the solar system. Small black holes don't seem to exist because they smaller they are, the faster they evaporate. See black hole evaporation. Jehochman Talk 19:35, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
But a brief explanation might avoid the danger of users wanting to insert it, even if only a see also.Slatersteven (talk) 15:58, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
I’m not sure what to reference. Can you show me a web page or Wikipedia article? Jehochman Talk
Not really as I can only barely recall reading about the idea. Kind of a shame if we have no article on it though, it would make an interesting study.Slatersteven (talk) 14:40, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
Take a look at Planets beyond Neptune. I believe it has a statement and reference that surveys have ruled out the possibility of an undiscovered Jupiter-mass planet out to 25,000 AU. See also Nemesis (hypothetical star). I'll add that one to "See also". Jehochman Talk 15:04, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
Another place to look Astronomical bodies in pseudoscience and the paranormal. There is a merge discussion ongoing there. Jehochman Talk 15:17, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
Gravity in the solar system has been studied in very precise detail. See Pioneer anomaly as an example of the massive work that's been done. Scientists know an awful lot about the motion of objects in the Solar System. It is always possible for something unknown to exist, but at least we are confident that there's no Stellar mass black hole nearby. Astronomy has not yet identified any black holes or dark objects smaller than stellar mass. See Black hole § Alternatives Jehochman Talk 15:33, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
True, but as I recall the idea was dwarf black holes. Here it is Micro black hole, found by looking for a variant of Dwarf black hole.Slatersteven (talk) 15:37, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
Aging Voyager 1 spacecraft undermines idea that dark matter is tiny black holes Agmartin (talk) 19:35, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for that, but this is why we need more (not here necessarily but wikipedai) on this stuff.Slatersteven (talk) 10:08, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
Indirect observation

Has it been indirectly observed?Slatersteven (talk) 17:16, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Great question. We say it hasn't been directly observed. It begs the question of whether there has been indirect observation. Jehochman Talk 19:35, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
I'd reserve indirectly observed for something all scientists could agree on like the detection of exoplanets via Doppler shifts. There are still skeptics where Planet Nine is concerned. Agmartin (talk) 19:44, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
I changed it to "visually observed" because that's crystal clear and doesn't beg any questions. For this planet, visual observation will be the accepted standard of proof. Jehochman Talk 20:10, 18 January 2019 (UTC)


plural abbreviations

It might be me but I though it should be (PA)s not (PAS). As surely we are abbreviating the singular?Slatersteven (talk) 16:03, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

You are correct. I don't see any that are wrong, but if you do please give me an example or two. Jehochman Talk 15:22, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
I was thinking of (eTNOS) should that not be (eTNO)s? Also why is the E in lower case?Slatersteven (talk) 15:32, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
Analysis of Pluto's orbit

Surely this section is in fact an alternative explanation?Slatersteven (talk) 16:36, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

Most likely it’s just an attempt to gather new evidence that isn’t conclusive because of “systematic errors in the measurements of Pluto's orbit.” I’ll look at copy editing it to make that clear. Jehochman Talk 03:20, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
Might be worth splitting it, with the stuff about systematic errors in the measurements kept there and the stuff about another explanation moved?Slatersteven (talk) 15:41, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
Past tense

Not going to single out any one line, but should this not be written in past tense?Slatersteven (talk) 16:57, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

I’ll reread and copy edit. Jehochman Talk 03:20, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
and a new survey ongoing since 2017 may yet find it.

Seems a tad crystal bally as it also may not find it.Slatersteven (talk) 11:04, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Fixed. Jehochman Talk 13:56, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
as few as 20 years

Is this standard English it reads a tad odd to me, should it not be "as little as 20 years"?Slatersteven (talk) 11:09, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

It must be vernacular. The grammar rule is to use “few” with a countable noun, and little with uncountable nouns. I’d be happy with as few as two pieces of toast and a little jam. Come back in a few minutes I need a little more time. Jehochman Talk 13:56, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
I think it depends on if "20 years" is taken as a period of uncountable time or as 20 countable years. English is weird in that semantics sometimes overwrites syntax (as in "Queen are a British rock band"). I'll have to say that while I follow your argument, "little" reads more natural to me (but then I'm not a native speaker). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:41, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
Good topic for linguistic study. I found 31,000 Google hits for "as little as 20 years" and 9,000 hits for "as few as 20 years". I changed it to the more prevalent form because we're not counting 20 years, we are saying an indefinite amount of time round about twenty years. Jehochman Talk 19:21, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Announced update to the theory - possible consequences for FA discussion

Thanks Jehochman for the new attempt to get this article to FA status. It is nice to see the ongoing improvements. At the risk of unwrapping my crystal ball, I would like to ask (and warn) about the announced paper by Brown, Batygin et al., which is due to be published in late January.[11] As Batygin has explained, there are profound changes made to the theory, which will need to be reflected in the article.[12] This will probably include making clear in the text how those changes came about, and how the "old" hypothesis differs from the new one. Depending on how grave those changes are, many of the papers published by several authors over the past few years that were build upon consequences of the hypothetical planet (by assuming the orbital elements announced in the original paper) will potentially become invalid or will at least need revision. As we can't say for sure how those consequences relate to the new hypothesis, it should be made clear that all consequences discussed in the article are about the old theory, not the new one, until their viability is proven in peer reviewed articles. I wonder whether this may cause disruption to the ongoing improvements and discussions to bring the article to FA status. Renerpho (talk) 17:40, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

I've been corresponding with Brown himself, precisely to avoid this kind of surprise, and roughly know what that paper is going to conclude. It will change the mass (6 ME) and orbit (400-500 AU), shifting them to the lighter-closer end of the ranges that were already disclosed in the literature. We will have to make a few updates, but it should not be so terrible. We also know they have discovered many, many new TNOs with the recent Subaru observations, and I expect that we will soon hear whether any of them are at sufficient range to be potential candidates for Planet Nine. It would then take a year to get orbital elements, unless there is precoverage. They are also planning another stint at Subaru in February to observe areas in front of the Milky Way and will then use some heavy duty image processing to try to find the planet in that dense star field. By late spring I expect they will either have found it, or created very serious doubts that it exists. Jehochman Talk 17:51, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
Batygin talks a bit about the changes in this video Agmartin (talk) 17:59, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
I think the primary changes will be in a few numbers maybe describing it as updated numbers using additional eTNOs and replacing some outdated references. Agmartin (talk) 18:05, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

terminology simplifications in the lede?

Some suggestions:

"Planet Nine is a hypothetical planet in the outer region of the Solar System."

How about "predicted" instead of "hypothetical". Wikilinking could be moved down article somewhere.

"Its gravitational field could explain the unlikely clustering of orbits…"

"gravitational field" i think is a poor wording and misleading. I think it is more about resonances of orbits and secondarily about a moderately massive planet and the wikilinking misses the whole topic of resonances anyway.

"…These improbable alignments suggest that a massive undiscovered planet…"

Again resonances are the primary affect and emphasizing the mass of the planet seems misplaced. It's far smaller than Jupiter in all likelihood.

"…estimated mass of ten times the Earth, a diameter two to four times the Earth, …"

"estimated" -> predicted? Also comparisons with Jupiter might help frame things better instead of just comparisons with the Earth.

"As of 2019, efforts have failed to observe Planet Nine."

Can I quibble and say no one has announced a discover as of 2019? If/when a discovery is announced it may very well depend on observations in 2019 and earlier because they'll need an arc of an orbit before anyone makes an announcement to make sure it fits the predictions or not.

Smkolins 17:06, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

I think predicted is too strong, as if it is now found we will have to re-write it as Hypothetical anyway. As to its mass and size, they are a range thus estimate seems appropriate. However 2019 is not yet over, so it might be nest to change it to 2018.Slatersteven (talk) 17:13, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
But aren't B&B's work a prediction? "Hypothetical" is too technical a word I think. At least in the lede it's comes off as jargon. "Estimate" has the opposite kind of meaning to me than you apparently. Pluto's mass can be estimated (now quite narrowly,) but this "estimate" is really a predicted range. So perhaps some other word between/among predicted and hypothetical?Smkolins 17:23, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
Proposed?Slatersteven (talk) 17:28, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
Yes that sounds good to me.Smkolins 17:58, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
Hypothetical is not jargon and sees fairly common use. I don't see any confusion with that word. The lede is an attempt to simplify everything in the body of the article. Describing at length that it is a resonance is more confusing to the layman. Everybody understands gravity and everyone understands hypothetical. If they don't, they can click on those to read more about them. If they want to learn more, that's what the body of the article is for. I see no reason to change anything at this moment. Leitmotiv (talk) 21:34, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
My point was that there wasn't any discussion of resonance or wikilink to issues of orbital resonances to it but instead to things about the (strength, because of the mention of multi-Earth mass planet.) I'm not suggesting a long discussion of resonances. What's so hard to say a repeating patterns of gravitational tugs over millions or billions of years causing a change in the orbits such as those observed. Not very technical but sound. That is a substantial section of the article and thus deserves to be at least mentioned in the lede.Smkolins 01:44, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
I think it goes beyond the scope of the lede, when gravity (or what is currently in the lede) suffices. We don't need to go into much depth, that's what the body of the article is for. Laymen will glean just as much from the lede now as they will by mentioning resonances and orbital tugs. Leitmotiv (talk) 01:50, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
"Beyond"? A lede is supposed to reflect the article. The article specifically references resonance many times and it isn't in the lede at all. That's unbalanced. Look - Sagan used to point out the Doctors had more affect gravitationally than Mars, yet here we are talking about the affect of s planet causing affects over distances larger than the inner solar system and relative to the scale of the distances, it's tiny. Instead you need many many many years, eons, of tiny pulls repeating in some pattern to manifest these affects. Instead the leded dwells the mass as the distinguishing reason for the predictions and it's anything but. The simulations had to run for billions of years to show the effects. But whatever you all want to decide. Just think about it. Smkolins 01:56, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
Maybe we're arguing semantics here, but a lede is not supposed to "reflect" the article, it's supposed to summarize it and be an introduction. Anything that gets too wordy or too in depth is best not in the lede. I think the article as it stands now "reflects" the article without going into unnecessary detail. Your response here suggests it's all fairly complicated ("anything but") and that's why it's best not in the lede. All ledes don't cover anything in depth and leave out gaping holes - that's to be expected. Leitmotiv (talk) 02:47, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
  • I've made copy edits to reflect these concerns.[13] However, I did not introduce the idea of resonance into the lede because that seems more advanced and will require a long explanation, one that we have in the body of the article. Jehochman Talk 19:13, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
I would leave discussion of resonances out of the lede because their importance is disputed by some, for example see the abstract of The Secular Dynamics of TNOs and Planet Nine Interactions Agmartin (talk) 22:25, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
Would agree, and would go further and say the article as a whole may be a tad too technical to keep the lay person interested. The problem is I cannot see a way of making it less technical. I think this is one situation where an policy breaking long lead may be useful.Slatersteven (talk) 10:11, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

New paper: Orbital Clustering in the Distant Solar System

New paper, [14] and draft [15], defenses claim of P9 as statistically real. Also thread [16], on arXiv after Wednesday. Tom Ruen (talk) 02:08, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

This paper supports the proposition that there's 0.2% chance the clustering is due to random chance rather than some sort of shepherding force. I think that's all we need to add to the article (and we can remove any prior stat). There is a second paper coming shortly that will have analytically derived orbital element predictions (5-6 ME, e=0.3, i=20°, 400-500 AU). The current predicted orbital elements were based on a bunch of Monte Carlo simulations. Jehochman Talk 02:25, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
I've added it to Brown's previous analysis in the alternate hypotheses section for now, and specified that the other one in that section used 10 objects. I think the 6 object analysis in the observation section should be left as is so if/when they find Planet Nine it can become part of the history section. Agmartin (talk) 20:40, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

In the news

I saw this report in the news today and I wonder if it is relevant or fringe: Mystery orbits in outermost reaches of solar system not caused by 'Planet Nine'. Cheers, Rowan Forest (talk) 15:27, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

The preprint was out several months ago, having read that the journal article was impending I added a section about it yesterday. I assume the physics is accurate, but reading the preprint it seemed the disk needed to be 'just so' for it to be stable over the life of the Solar System. They did mention that there is a way to form a disk as they describe but that is another another work that was 'in prep.' Agmartin (talk) 16:35, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras. There are many alternate theories, so it would be undue weight to give this one more than a brief mention for now. Jehochman Talk 16:41, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
I think this is at least as plausible as the inclination instability which these authors claim is a transient state that ultimately leads to their disk, with the details in a future paper. I recognize the second author from a paper Batygin linked in this post on findplanetnine.com. Agmartin (talk) 17:24, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
What you have written is good. We should not put in much more at this stage, nor should we rethink the whole article. Jehochman Talk 17:25, 21 January 2019 (UTC)
Mike Brown has a post about this blog: Is Planet Nine just a ring of icy bodies? Agmartin (talk) 19:07, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
If it is a ring, then its gravitational influence should be evenly distributed. But what do I know... Rowan Forest (talk) 20:24, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
Sefilian and Touma propose an eccentric ring, since the objects would travel slowest near aphelion most of the mass would be concentrated toward one side, sort of like if a million year time lapse movie of Planet Nine orbiting the Sun was made. Agmartin (talk) 16:48, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Should inclination instability & shepherding by massive disk be merged with each other? J mareeswaran (talk) 05:35, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

[17] Sefilian and Touma are not the first to propose this theory. In 2016, a study led by astronomer Anne-Marie Madigan from the University of California, Berkeley, suggested an outer Kuiper Belt disk comprised of ice-covered planetesimals—the bits and pieces left over from the formation of the Solar System—could be responsible for the strange TNO orbits. The new paper is different in that a mathematical model was used to show how this hypothetical disk, and the Solar System’s eight planets, might influence the orbital configuration of TNOs.
Their proposed disk have different eccentricities and affect different orbital elements. Sefilian and Touma's disk has a moderated eccentricity, the example used in the paper has a moderate eccentricity that varies with the semimajor axis, beginning at zero and reaching 0.165 at the outer edge. This disk would align the longitudes of perihelion. The Madigan and McCourt's disk begins with a large eccentricity, at least 0.6, that decreases with time as the inclination instability unfolds. Their disk was proposed to explain the clustering of the arguments of perihelion. There is also another disk described in one of the origin hypotheses. Eriksson, Mustill, and Anders propose that a massive disk that formed in situ, so probably with circular orbits unless a passing star perturbed it. This disk would stabilize Planet Nine's orbit by lowering its eccentricity. Perhaps I should add something to differentiate them. Agmartin (talk) 16:48, 23 January 2019 (UTC)
Its certainly something that needs to be made clear to a lay person (or even one standing up).Slatersteven (talk) 16:50, 23 January 2019 (UTC)
Done. Agmartin (talk) 16:56, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Rebuttal in the works: "🦁 Leo C. Stein @duetosymmetry That's what I've been saying all along! "The shepherding disk hypothesis…could obviate the need for [a potential ninth planet] altogether" Shepherding in a Self-gravitating Disk of Trans-Neptunian Objects, Sefilian and Touma 2019 AJ 157 79 http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/aaf0fc/meta ‏@kbatygin and @plutokiller, awaiting your rebuttal paper"

Konstantin Batygin @kbatygin Replying to @duetosymmetry Will be on the arXiv in ~1 week. https://twitter.com/duetosymmetry/status/1087858608451260416 Agmartin (talk) 17:13, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Hype

Nope

Not sure what this means. Could it be? [18] Jehochman Talk 15:38, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Yes, it is way to big. It is supposed to be for the interested lay person. Not a scientific paper (which (by the way) does answer one of the questions raised there). But lets not jump to conclusions, they may not be new facts, just new evidence supporting (or diminishing) the old ones.Slatersteven (talk) 15:45, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
Last year they were hinting at two papers, one was published two weeks ago, the other was the new estimate of Planet Nine's orbit based on lots of simulations of the known eTNOs that kept getting adjusted as new ones were found. I expect that one is dropping tomorrow. I believe Batygin was discussing some of it here. Agmartin (talk) 16:51, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
I don’t think so base on Brown’s “oh, oh”. They found a great many new TNOs. They’ve been working on parallax calculations to determine the distance of each. This process should be done presently. If one of them is out a few hundred AU, that news would be big. A correction to the projected orbit would be a very minor thing for us. Easy to update in two minutes. I’m guessing that events have overtaken the second paper. Jehochman Talk 16:57, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
I now think Brown was trolling you. Agmartin (talk) 21:08, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
Plutokiller trolling? I can’t believe it. Have prior papers been embargoed for a week on arxiv because of journal publication? This one feels different. No? Jehochman Talk 21:15, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
When they show up on arxiv seems to depend on the journal and the authors, some are posted before they are accepted like Sefilian and Touma's article was, others show up when they are accepted, some I remember that were in Nature Astronomy didn't show up on arxiv until a week after publication, that may be the journal's policy. The press typically waits until they published before reporting on them so waiting until then in this case makes sense. Agmartin (talk) 21:37, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
He’s never been cagey before. In the past he just says what the future paper will say. This time it feels different. Jehochman Talk 00:17, 6 February 2019 (UTC)
There was also the rebuttal to Shepherding in a Self-gravitating Disk of Trans-Neptunian Objects. Agmartin (talk) 17:05, 5 February 2019 (UTC)
It looks like Brown has four half nights on Subaru starting tonight.[19] They said they were coming back in February to beat on the Milky Way. Jehochman Talk 17:12, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

Brown says next week’s paper is one they’ve been working on for a year. Not a discovery announcement. [20] Jehochman Talk 16:56, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

The first one he was discussing in this tweet. Agmartin (talk) 17:39, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Wow:

...HIGH WIND WARNING NOW IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 PM HST MONDAY...

  • WINDS...For the Big Island summits of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, west winds 45 to 65 mph this morning, increasing to 60 to 80 mph this afternoon, then increasing to 80 to 100 mph tonight. Even stronger west winds are expected Sunday and Sunday night, with speeds reaching 90 to 120 mph with higher gusts. Winds will begin to decrease on Monday but are expected to remain at warning levels.

Agmartin (talk) 19:33, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

Sounds like Mount Washington. Jehochman Talk 20:46, 9 February 2019 (UTC)

One good night of four:

Surhud More @astrosumo A single decent night sandwiched between two cloudy nights and a windy night, when the dome couldn’t be opened. We get what we get, the rest we forget! @plutokiller @kbatygin #PlanetNine 8:48 AM - 10 Feb 2019 https://twitter.com/astrosumo/status/1094639248182046722

I noticed that they were not chatting so much on twitter this time around, unlike in December... Agmartin (talk) 20:14, 10 February 2019 (UTC)

Checks for new Planet Nine paper. Nope, still not published. Agmartin (talk) 20:32, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

2018 VM35

Current estimate of semimajor axis 240 AU http://www.minorplanetcenter.net/db_search/show_object?object_id=2018+VM35&commit=Show

Oops, should have waited on this one JPL has a=236 ±297AU, q=45.3 ±5.7AU. Agmartin (talk) 17:28, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
The 89 day observation arc gives it away. Ideally want a multiyear arc for an object currently 55AU from the Sun. -- Kheider (talk) 18:19, 23 February 2019 (UTC)

New Numbers

Konstantin Batygin @kbatygin update: all is good to go, I arxived it this morning. Should perhaps appear as early as tonight 2:11 PM - 26 Feb 2019 https://twitter.com/kbatygin/status/1100518636286922752 Agmartin (talk) 22:31, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we've heard it a million times. I'm going over the arxiv right now, and if it's not there, I'm going to taunt them severely. Jehochman Talk 01:10, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
It's up! https://arxiv.org/abs/1902.10103 Tom Ruen (talk) 02:44, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
Based on the new blog post by Batygin, the revised P9 values, do not explain the 5th anomaly (Sun's tilt) anymore J mareeswaran (talk) 10:54, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
We will need a new eTNO image with a smaller orbit for Planet Nine. Agmartin (talk) 17:08, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
From the university press release:
Based on new models and extensive calculations presented in the review, the researchers estimate that Planet Nine has a mass of about five times that of Earth and has an orbital semimajor axis in the neighborhood of 400 astronomical units, making it smaller and closer to the Sun than previously suspected—and potentially brighter
J mareeswaran (talk) 18:53, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
One more university press release:
Based on the new models, Batygin and Brown—together with Fred Adams and Juliette Becker (BS '14) of the University of Michigan—concluded that Planet Nine has a mass of about five times that of the earth and has an orbital semimajor axis in the neighborhood of 400 astronomical units (AU), making it smaller and closer to the sun than previously suspected—and potentially brighter
J mareeswaran (talk) 05:59, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
I am glad update the image with new representative orbit given complete set of orbital parameters desired. Tom Ruen (talk) 08:38, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
I'd go with a = 500 AU, e = 0.25, long of peri = 240 degrees, that's what they are using in figure 17. Agmartin (talk) 18:03, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
I'm wondering if it was NOT appropriate to completely remove the 5th anomaly (Sun's tilt) edit, while perhaps it should be restored and rewritten in a way to explain the original consideration, and the reason it is now discounted. I see it is mentioned here Planet_Nine#Batygin_and_Brown_hypothesis. Tom Ruen (talk) 08:36, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
It has to be removed. Brown has said they don’t believe it anymore. When they find it and get real numbers then maybe it will be revised again. Jehochman Talk 11:30, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
I was thinking of adding "Previously Planet Nine was hypothesized to be responsible for the 6 degree tilt of the Sun's axis relative to the orbits of the planets but recent updates to its predicted orbit and mass limit this shift to ~1 degree." to the first paragraph of Evidence for those that may remember the prediction. The first paragraph on page 60 of the arxiv version The Planet Nine Hypothesis discusses potential shifts in the Sun's obliquity of 0.7 to 1.1 degrees. Agmartin (talk) 17:48, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
That’s a good thing to add in case somebody sees old news. Maybe we should add that to the history section along with the earlier mass and size estimates. It may help people understand why that stuff went away. Jehochman Talk 18:01, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
There are also the numbers for longitude of ascending node, longitude of perihelion etc. listed under simulations. I am wondering if they should be reverted back to the original 100 degrees, 240 degrees since we don't have something we can cite for the numbers they are using in the new article. I estimated them as 90 degrees and 240 degrees using a screenshot from a talk by Batygin and had the numbers confirmed in a comment on Batygin's recent blog post, but I doubt we can cite that. Agmartin (talk) 18:38, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
In case someone else notices, figures 10 and 13 in the arxiv version of The Planet Nine Hypothesis have the arrows going in different directions than the figure in the dynamics section of our article. I checked with Dr. Batygin, the diagram in our article has the arrows in the correct direction. Agmartin (talk) 18:57, 2 March 2019 (UTC)

2008 paper

What about “AN OUTER PLANET BEYOND PLUTO AND THE ORIGIN OF THE TRANS-NEPTUNIAN BELT ARCHITECTURE” published in The Astronomical Journal? Is this relevant to Planet Nine or does it belong on Planets beyond Neptune? An editor added it and I removed it because the relevancy and proper weight were unclear. Jehochman Talk 09:38, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Is it about this planet or another?Slatersteven (talk) 11:16, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
It seems like it could be an unrelated theory. The proposed mass is much lower and the proposed orbit is closer, though inclined. But maybe the thesis is close enough. It depends whether it was cited by the subsequent papers we mention. If they were influenced by this theory then maybe it should be included. Somebody has to look through the relevant papers. I haven’t done so yet. Jehochman Talk 15:22, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
I've looked through a bunch of the papers we've cited. It is mentioned in some, usually with a few others that also propose planets as an explanation for Sedna's orbit. I found this from Lawler et al notable: "Lykawka and Mukai (2008) suggest the presence of a distant Earth-mass planet to explain some of the structure of the Kuiper Belt, but one of their key arguments requires that there be no objects in distant Neptune mean-motion resonances. Several distant resonances, including the 3:1, 4:1, and 5:1, have been shown by recent surveys to be heavily populated (Gladman et al. 2012; Alexandersen et al. 2014; Pike et al. 2015)." Agmartin (talk) 19:57, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
I read this when it came out, and just skimmed it. This hypothetical planet attempt's to explain the bulk properties of the then-known TNOs (but not any distant Oort stuff). Primarily, it's about the dual existence of the hot/cold-classical populations, the cliff, a small number of Sedna-like orbits, and the lack of objects found at higher Neptune resonances (because this planet would break those up). They have a planet roughly half-earth mass in a 6:1 (or higher N:1) resonance with Neptune (100-175 AU), >80 AU perihelion, and ~30 degree inclination. I don't think it qualifies as a P9-like proposal since it doesn't say anything about the aligned and anti-aligned "fan" orbits (most of those objects weren't known then), which is the heart of P9. That is, P9 attempts to explain a few specific features, whereas Lykawka-Mukai attempt to explain the gross shape. I think this paper does belong in Planets beyond Neptune, since it is a specific proposal with given testable predictions. Tbayboy (talk) 18:10, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
It was in an earlier version of this article. I moved it to Planets beyond Neptune to reduce the length of the History section because it was focused primarily on the Kuiper belt. It might be useful as a citation in the sentence that listed the three initial explanations for Sedna's orbit. I'll check some of the P9 papers to see it it was mentioned. Agmartin (talk) 20:03, 17 February 2019 (UTC)
After reading the full New Scientist article by Govert Schilling , I think there are two parts to the Planet X theory by Tadashi Mukai & Patryk Lykawka
  • Sculpting of Kuiper cliff by the outward migration of Planet X. This was almost immediately superseded by the more popular NICE model
  • Excited eccentricity & detached perihelion of eTNO. This was superseded by later work from Gomes where he specifically idenifies 6 eTNOs, whose eccentricity cannot be explained by Neptune. Plus Gomes in a separate study analysed elongated orbital diameter of the Centaurs
J mareeswaran (talk) 06:46, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
in the introduction, They are talking about the following
the unexplained excited e-distribution of cold classical TNOs and the existence of a substantial population of detached TNOs require a sculpting mechanism other than the foregoing ones. Alternative excitation mechanisms include passing stars, large (massive) planetesimals that existed in the past, giant molecular clouds, an unseen planet, and a temporarily eccentric Neptune
J mareeswaran (talk) 07:20, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
This is from inside the paper
we found that the strength of the planetoid's perturbation depends essentially on aP, its relative longitudes with disk planetesimals, and MP ... The possible capture in a distant resonance suggests aP ~ 100–175 AU near current locations of 6:1–14:1 resonances ... the model suggests qP > 80 AU and iP = 10–50°, although 20–40° were apparently more commonly obtained in self-consistent simulations. ... Note that the main orbital element connected to this conclusion is the planetoid's perihelion distance, implying that the semimajor axis and inclination play a negligible role ... we found that a migrating trans-Plutonian planet represents an excellent way to reconcile the excitation of the trans-Neptunian belt and the preservation of the latter, in particular its resonant populations. However, this modified model with a migrating planetoid does not form distant resonant populations (beyond 50 AU), in particular in the 9:4, 5:2, and 8:3 resonances (e.g., see Lykawka & Mukai 2007a). We solved this problem by allowing the planetoid to perturb the trans-Neptunian belt well before planet migration.
J mareeswaran (talk) 07:41, 4 March 2019 (UTC)
Secondary source reference for Lykawka's planet X (by Govert Schilling — he has also published book on planet X) in New Scientist :
“There are similar proposals in the literature,” says Renu Malhotra at the University of Arizona in Tucson, “but Lykawka has done a more comprehensive job. I think his idea should be given fair attention.”
J mareeswaran (talk) 11:01, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

There is one more article on paper by Lykawka & Mukai. Not sure if it is same or they came up with two different predictions in the same year !

According to the model, Sedna and other Kuiper Belt oddities could be explained by a world 30 to 70 percent as massive as Earth orbiting between 100 AU and 200 AU from the sun.

J mareeswaran (talk) 10:56, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

It looks like there was an AFP report based on Tokyo University press release, that was picked by multiple outlets

J mareeswaran (talk) 11:23, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Following comment by Joshua Hill in Canada Free Press, describes the work by Mukai & Lykawka in less technical terms:
apparently based in nothing more than supposition. The pair from Kobe University set up a theoretical model that focusing on the Kuiper belt – similar to the asteroid belt sitting between Mars and Jupiter, but out past Neptune and far larger; 20 times as wide and 20–200 times as massive. The model was designed to look at the area and how it would have evolved over the past four billion years. “In coming up with an explanation for the celestial bodies, we thought it would be most natural to assume the existence of a yet unknown planet,” Mukai said. “Based on our hypothesis, we calculated how debris moved over the past four billion years. The result matched the actual movement of the celestial bodies we can observe now.” So, as far as I can see, there isn’t anything like the gravitational effects that were played out on Neptune that led to astronomer Clyde Tombaugh locating Pluto in 1930. This time around, it is – as far as I can tell – simple statistics
J mareeswaran (talk) 15:00, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Planet X

The article has a section of text that explains the Percival Lowell hypothesis, "Planet X", and later on explains why this is unrelated to Planet Nine. Alan Stern at NASA is pushing the "Planet X" moniker because he has a thing for Pluto and wants to stick it to Mike Brown. We should stay out of this dispute, other than to report on it. If we get into Planet X we need to explain the whole backstory. We need to think about whether we want to get deeper into that, and if so, where it belongs and what to say in the lede. Jehochman Talk 17:27, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

Leave Planet X out of it. -- Kheider (talk) 17:31, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

As long as there are two names for the hypothesis used in public it seems useful to include something in the intro, even if details are anchor-linked below. Tom Ruen (talk) 18:30, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
That's what the hatnotes are for. Planet X should stay out.Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:36, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
Now-a-days, Planet X is more of a youtube conspiracy theory. Planet Nine is a scientific theory. -- Kheider (talk) 18:39, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
I respect astronomer Alan Stern, but his opinion is just that, and it cannot dismiss the fact that the concept of Planet X was based on completely different premises. I also think the "Naming" section should be omitted in favor of the Planet X hat note at the top of the article. Rowan Forest (talk) 19:11, 6 March 2019 (UTC)
If there was ever to be a section about Planet X it would be at the very bottom of the article as a compare/contrast/criticism section. Planet X already has it's own article and no need to describe at this article. Leitmotiv (talk) 20:38, 6 March 2019 (UTC)

predicted

Not sure this word is valid, as it is a prediction (it has not be shown to be true yet), postulated might be better.Slatersteven (talk) 17:23, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

It's fine, because it's already been established earlier that it is a hypothesis, or as it is currently written, a "proposed" planet. It is a hypothetical planet which if proven correct would have a predicted mass... Leitmotiv (talk) 19:13, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

I like the word 'undiscovered'. Whoever put that in the Lede, did a great job. Kudos. J mareeswaran (talk) 05:29, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

New News

So has anything more been found about Planet 9?Slatersteven (talk) 09:15, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Not yet. The search area is in the direction of the sun this time of year because of the Earth's orbit. Observations cannot resume until Orion is visible high in the night sky to get a clear view, which begins in late fall and ends in late winter. Mike Brown recently paid off a bet for not having found P9 yet. Jehochman Talk 14:38, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

I made a bet with Tom Heaton that we would have found Planet Nine by today. We have not. He may now collect his prizes.

Mike Brown (@plutokiller) May 2, 2019

Maybe add this titbit?Slatersteven (talk) 14:47, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
Trivia more than anything. Might belong on the Mike Brown page. Maybe. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:53, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
Not sure, it is an admission they have not found it yet, despite being sure they would.Slatersteven (talk) 14:55, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
"Being sure" [citation needed]. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:04, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
Your right of course, I would never make a bet if I thought there was any real chance of me loosing, but others might.Slatersteven (talk) 15:06, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

OSSOS XVII: Probing the Distant Solar System with Observed Scattering TNOs

New paper that includes the migration of giant planets Planet Nine and the influence of the galaxy on scattering objects. One result, P9 produces too many objects with moderate inclinations, 15 - 30 degrees, resembles a previous result for Jupiter-family comets. Another result has me puzzled, the anti-alignment is relatively weak, and at some semimajor axes alignment appears to be favored. I'm now looking at figure 7 of the paper and comparing with figures of others showing the secular dynamics wondering what the heck is going on. Agmartin (talk) 21:47, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

Zwicky Transient Facility

Planet Nine not found in their first year database: 

It's now been a year since the Zwicky Transient Facility has been operating at Palomar Observatory.  So it is time to answer the question everyone should have been (but no one was? maybe?) asking. Is Planet Nine in the public ZTF archive already?

When the analysis finished this week the answer was: there are 6 objects in the data that follow something that looks like a Keplerian orbit! Sadly, in detailed examination of all of them, I don't think any are real. The bottom line: Planet Nine is not in year 1 of ZTF.

thread starting here :https://twitter.com/plutokiller/status/1137076882170568704 Agmartin (talk) 20:35, 7 June 2019 (UTC)

New eTNO

A bunch of new objects from the Dark Energy Survey showing up in the MPEC including

2013 RA109 a=457.51, e=0.90, i=12 q=45.986 Ω=263, ω=104, wbar=7

https://minorplanetcenter.net/mpec/K19/K19HB6.html Agmartin (talk) 17:22, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

Another new eTNO 2013 SL102 a=315.04, e=0.879, i= 6.5, Ω=265.3, ω=94.6 wbar=0. wbar puts it at current edge of anti-aligned group. Agmartin (talk) 20:05, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

2013 SL102 is most likely the object known as pe82/ws301y4a. 70.95.87.24 (talk) 01:23, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

Anachronistic Usage of Contemporary Designations

Under History: "The discovery of Sedna's peculiar orbit in 2004 led to speculation that it had encountered a massive body other than one of the eight known planets." It should read *nine* known planets with a notation stating that Pluto was still referred to as a planet at the time. In 2004 there were 9 known planets being considered for interaction. Regardless of what would happen later (and individuals' feeling about it), had the IAU made Pluto, Eris, etc. "official" planets it would be inaccurate to have referred to 12 known planets for 2004.216.115.239.51 (talk) 22:55, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Good catch. I'll just remove "eight" because the sentence is just as clear, but more concise, without it. Jehochman Talk 03:49, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

Chaos in the inert Oort cloud

New article discusses chaos in region where planetary interactions and galactic tide are both weak. None of current sednoids or Planet Nine would be affected although 2015 TG387 and Planet Nine's orbits are near the chaotic regions. Agmartin (talk) 21:24, 20 August 2019 (UTC)

Primordial black hole

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
This dead horse has been beaten enough. Jehochman Talk

Hi. This theory is mere speculation. There’s no evidence to support it. Primordial black holes have not yet been shown to exist, so that makes this theory doubly speculative. It doesn’t belong in the article yet. Science can change and evidence might appear some day in the future. Who knows. Jehochman Talk 16:45, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

As well as it being a one line factoid in the wrong place anyway. But yes, the main objection is fringe speculation.Slatersteven (talk) 16:48, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
A couple of duplicate reversions at roughly the same time have had editors replacing what they intended to remove. Fixed now. Agmartin (talk) 20:47, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
That's bizarre. That's not the way I remember that edit happening. Thanks for the fix. Leitmotiv (talk) 22:15, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
That was bizarre indeed. Edit friendly fire, anyone? --Ørjan (talk) 04:53, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
Ha! Yeah that's it! I see it was a simultaneous edit. First in over 10 years! Leitmotiv (talk) 05:54, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
And now the article has been protected, I suspect because of the repeated reversions, rather than the two times the black hole material was added. Agmartin (talk) 05:18, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
You know what would be hilarious? If its discovery was announced while the article is protected. Agmartin (talk) 05:47, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
I am going to go out on a limb here and say I do not think that will be a problem.Slatersteven (talk) 10:47, 26 November 2019 (UTC)
That's one short limb! Leitmotiv (talk) 18:49, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

I dont believe the black hole theory either, but why is it considerred poorly sourced? The link here is similar to other links we use, isnt it? Its a proposal, so there should be no need for peer review. I apologise if theres something Im not seeing .... its late and Im not at my usual PC. —Soap— 06:34, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, I missed the section above. I didnt think we'd need to see peer review, though, just to mention a new theory, ... peer review is for verification. But the claim we're verifying is simple: we are not saying that Planet Nine is a black hole, or even that Planet Nine might be a black hole, we're simply saying that some scientists think Planet Nine may be a black hole. Surely, simply seeing the claim verifies its existence. —Soap— 07:15, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

Is it? Has this been published or just submitted?Slatersteven (talk) 10:26, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
The arxiv page does not mention it being submitted, just 'Report number: IPPP/19/73'. IPPP is Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology at Durham University. I'm guessing 19/73 is internal labeling for something in house, perhaps a newsletter. Agmartin (talk) 19:05, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
...or the 73rd item for the year on this page: https://www.dur.ac.uk/research/news/item/ Agmartin (talk) 19:20, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
They dont seem to use the word "publish", but it does have a label
Submission history
From: James Unwin [view email]
[v1] Tue, 24 Sep 2019 18:00:01 UTC (19 KB)
And their About page links to this which indicates not everything that people send them gets through. From what I can gather, this paper has been approved, to the furthest extent that the arXiv moderators go. —Soap— 20:27, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
I wonder what's wrong with adding the black hole hypothesis? Why are you concerned about adding it to the page or not? 212.186.0.174 (talk) 07:21, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
Because they are a wp:fringe idea (though I suspect planet 9 maybe now as well).Slatersteven (talk) 11:05, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Although I still dont think we need peer review to show us that an opinion exists, if the consensus goes that way, perhaps we can still add the black hole theory in time, as our arXiv article indicates that most of what is submitted to arXiv is later submitted for peer review. Perhaps not all are approved, but this seems like a pretty solid theory to me. —Soap— 02:18, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

There is nothing to suggest it's a primordial black hole. This is just wild speculation. It also could be a ~5 earth mass cheeseburger, or a ~5 earth mass space-cow. Anything ~5 earth masses would do. Jehochman Talk 02:36, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
Jehochman, Definitely a ~5 earth mass teapot. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 03:59, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
No, I'm certain it is ~5 Earth masses of Passenger Pigeons. Agmartin (talk) 05:15, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
No, no, it’s a huge pile of all the Universe’s missing left socks. Jehochman Talk 18:34, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
"this seems like a pretty solid theory to me." -Soap. Oh boy. Where to begin? Rowan Forest (talk) 18:39, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
By that I mean, that while I don't believe in the theory myself, it is perfectly self-consistent, as a scientific theory should be. I don't think it's comparable to the teapot analogy, or even to things like Nibiru. —Soap— 06:01, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
No. There is lots of pseudoscientific idiocy in the world. We do not infect science articles with nonsense. This theory is not notable. It's just a passing click-bait headline. Jehochman Talk 21:55, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
(Standing ovation) -Rowan Forest (talk) 01:49, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
Jehochman, The theory might not be notable, but there are reliable sources discussing it. We should reflect that, even if we don't like it. The sources are all pretty dismissive of it, as we should be, but it should be included based on WP:WEIGHT. Not discussing it at all (because WP:IJUSTDONTLIKEIT) when reliable sources cover it is not correct. Sure, the original paper was mainly a wild swing/joke, but an easily falsifiable one. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 23:35, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

The issue seems to be encompassed by two things:

1. The hypothesis is based on mathematical science. That's why the hypothesis exists in the first place and why we have an article about it. The hypothesis states a planetary influence.

2. Other drive-by hypotheses hitchhike on this and suggest random possibilities. As others have stated, they're click bait.

Summary: Without the mathematical science this article wouldn't exist. Imagine if people proposed an article about Planet Nine, based on a primordial blackhole but had none of the mathematical science to formulate the current hypothesis. It would be flimsy and anything salvageable would be merged into an pre-existing article if not outright deleted.

I'm not opposed to having a primordial blackhole section, so long as there is substantial evidence that supports it. But so far as I can see, there is none. As others have said before, yeah it could be a blackhole but that's just as likely as the flying spaghetti monster. While not impossible, it is improbable and not worthy of this article's attention until we see evidence (sources) of meatballs. Leitmotiv (talk) 00:34, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Leitmotiv, That's not the way WP:WEIGHT works. Even a one line mention would be sufficient, but leaving it out entirely when it received a bunch of news coverage is doing our readers a disservice (if only because if we don't mention it at all we can't note how outlandish it is and specifically that it has no evidence supporting it).
Think about it. A reader reads some crackpot article talking about primordial black holes and Planet 9, maybe even on a forum somewhere, then comes here; finds nothing. They think, "Oh... I guess Wikipedia hasn't heard about this theory". Rather than what should happen; they come here and get some info regarding why the primordial blackhole theory is outlandish and unsupported, and read more about more likely theories that are supported. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 00:48, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
Noise does not equate to notability, especially in a science article. There is insufficient evidence to consider such a premise, otherwise we must also debunk a sh!tload of other "hypotheses" published by the mass media. Rowan Forest (talk) 01:49, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
Rowan Forest, Notability has nothing to do with it. WP:N has nothing to say about the content of articles (see the lead of that policy page). For that we look at WP:NPOV, particularly WP:DUE. In this case a number of reliable sources have commented on the existence of this theory, therefore we should as well, even if it is only a mention. As for "debunking a shitload of other ... whatever", I have no interest in other stuff, we are discussing this specific example. The sources I have linked above treat it as a legitimate theory, an unlikely one, but an interesting idea. We can't just dismiss it because we don't think it likely to be true. Seriously see the [MIT Tech Review] article; do they treat it as pseudoscience? No. They treat it as an interesting idea that indicates potential new ways to search for the object. Or is MIT tech review not a reliable source in your mind? — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 03:22, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
This is a featured article. It’s not the place to drop in pop culture baloney or fringe theories. The consensus is clearly against including this nonsense. Jehochman Talk 04:32, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
I agree with Insertcleverphrasehere (talk · contribs). I dont think we should be judging on our own what qualifies as pseudoscience .... and I dont think we should need a peer reviewed source to show that the scientific opinion exists. But I'm hoping that the PBH researchers will go on to submit their article for peer review so that it will stand objectively on the same ground as the others. —Soap— 05:59, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
Trouble is, the primordial blackhole "theory" isn't based on pseudoscience or science. They've literally haven't tested for it - kind of a prerequisite for science. It's all just pub talk. Click-bait authors are just talking out of their buttocks, because "BLACKHOLES man!" If an article comes along that says they tested for primordial blackholes as part of the science - put it in the article. Until then, I think the consensus is quite clear that adding it to the article does nothing to advance it. Leitmotiv (talk) 06:37, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
Leitmotiv, Isn’t that the whole point of their paper though? They make a hypothesis and list the ways it could be falsified. We aren’t currently searching in ways that would discover a small black hole, that’s why they suggested it, so that they could discuss ways that would discover something like that. Sure it’s a rediculous longshot, but lots of hypotheses are. So long as it is falsifiable, it is science. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 08:43, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
I get your point, but actual science involves testing, and toward that end, a PBH is not a real alternative hypothesis, because there is no testing. I see no reason to have an entire section devoted to "what ifs". However, if you want a section on criticism showing the ways there may be confirmation bias or as you put it "ways it could be falsified", I could see it being mentioned briefly - but not as an actual alternative hypothesis because there are no sources explicitly and directly supporting that. Leitmotiv (talk) 18:27, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
Jehochman, Actually, as a Featured article, one of the requirements is completeness. Without even mentioning the PBHT, this article is currently failing the criteria. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 08:46, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
"Completeness" does not mean "throw in everything, including the kitchen sink." — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 12:27, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
"Notability has nothing to do with it." - Insertcleverphrasehere
So you admit the teapot is not notable science but that doesn't matter? I rest my case. The consensus is clearly against it in Wikipedia, never mind the scientific consensus that provoked jokes and laughter amongst his peers. Rowan Forest (talk) 14:39, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
Rowan Forest, Um... did you read what I wrote? WP:N is for deciding what topics we have on wikipedia, WP:NPOV is for determining what content we have in the topics we have. And yes, there is more than enough coverage in secondary sources to meet the GNG in his case. Someone could make an independent article on the Planet 9 primordial black hole hypothesis (not that i'm suggesting that is a good idea). — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 17:42, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
Did you read what I wrote? This is a science article. Coverage by clickbait does not equate to scientific publications. Rowan Forest (talk) 19:01, 4 December 2019 (UTC)
Rowan Forest, It isn't your job to decide what is 'clickbait' and what isn't. That's why we follow what is published in reliable sources. Is MIT Tech Review a reliable source or not? I do understand that we don't want extraneous or incredulous theories in the article, but per sources such as MIT Tech review, some reliable sources treat this as a legitimate scientific hypothesis worth investigating, if an unlikely one. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 20:34, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
By all the goats in Galway, yes it is my job to take out the garbage when I find it. Rowan Forest (talk) 23:09, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
@Insertcleverphrasehere: Take a look at the current alternative hypotheses section. Those examples are the bar for inclusion. Do you feel PBH has enough content to be on par with those? Leitmotiv (talk) 20:47, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
Leitmotiv, For a short paragraph? Sure. So long as we make it clear that it is considered unlikely. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 21:25, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
Well that's the rub. Why are we posting something that is unlikely? That doesn't sound like a legitimate alternative hypothesis by the strictest of definitions. Merely stating something is an alternative hypothesis, wouldn't be enough for inclusion in this article. I think any worthwhile inclusion will need as much info as previous entries. I don't think there are enough sources to delve into that because no science has been done. It would basically amount to, "some people said X is a possibility" and that's frivolous, low-quality material. I think any alternative hypothesis has to have more material than that, otherwise it's going to look like any article that posits "other examples include: X, Y and Z". At some point, you don't need other examples, unless there is enough content to warrant some discussion of them and PBH does not have high-quality material required for inclusion - it all essentially boils down to opinion. Leitmotiv (talk) 21:57, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
Leitmotiv, Well, they said it was an unlikely scenario, but one of thier arguments in the paper is that all of the individual scenarios are fairly unlikely (see the MIT tech review article for a discussion of this). I think the real value for our article comes in discussing how we are currently looking for the planet and alternative signatures that the object might have in the event that it was a PBH: Quote from MIT Tech Review:
"They go on to calculate the capture probability based on the number of nearby primordial black holes that the OGLE observations suggest.One consequence of this theory is that Planet 9 will be impossible to spot with visible-light and infrared telescopes. That means astronomers’ current searches for the planet are doomed to failure.
A primordial black hole would have a very different signature, say Scholtz and Unwin. They hypothesize that it would be surrounded by a halo of dark matter and that annihilation of dark-matter particles would generate gamma rays.
This signal might even be strong enough to be observed by the Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope. Scholtz and Unwin say they plan to look for this signal in the Fermi data at some point in the future.
That’s fascinating work that provides an entirely new perspective on Planet 9 and how astronomers should look for it."
Note that their hypothesis has very clear failure conditions and is falsifiable. They have noted the type of signature that it would have if it was, and how this might help searching for the object and ruling out if it was a PBH or not. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 22:18, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
The problem is PBHs are hypothetical objects - none have ever been confirmed? The alternative hypotheses that are supplied are based on actual possibilities, even if low probability. As for the content you posted, it's more about PBHs in general and application to an actual Planet Nine alternative hypothesis is skimpy or non-existent. We're not going to post info on PBHs in general on a Planet Nine article; we're here to discuss how they would be an actual alternative hypothesis. That's the part that seems to be missing from the sources - probably because PBHs are hypothetical objects and they have no info to back it up. Sorry, PBHs aren't a real hypothesis with any thought put into how it's an actual alternative. Leitmotiv (talk) 22:47, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
Leitmotiv, PBHs aren't a fringe theory though? They are just unobserved hypothetical objects. Given our current observational abilities we shouldn't really have expected to see them anyway as they are very hard to detect. Isn't that the whole point of this hypothesis; that they are discussing the recent OGLE data that has been proposed to possibly show a signature of PBHs and saying "if that's true, couldn't Planet 9 also be a PBH"?

I do hear you though. Based on what you are saying, I can respect a decision to not include it as an 'alternative hypothesis' as an editorial choice (especially because this hypothesis really isn't proposing anything different regarding the data and interpretation of the primary hypothesis, but rather just a different origin and nature of the object). Also, I'm not convinced that this hypothesis has the WP:WEIGHT to be represented on an 'equal' footing with those other alternative hypotheses (i.e. with it's own section). As such, I propose that we do not include it in the 'Alternative Hypotheses' section, but rather make a note of the hypothesis in the "Origin" section of our article with a couple of sentences. Perhaps something along the lines of:

"It has also been suggested that if primordial black holes exist (a candidate for dark matter) that a captured black hole of the appropriate size could also fit the observed data. The authors suggest that such an object, if it existed, would have a very different signature; being largely invisible in the visible and infrared searches currently being conducted but instead could possibly be detectable using data from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope."[27][28][29][30] — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 23:31, 5 December 2019 (UTC) Alternatively, it could fit in the Planet_Nine#Visibility_and_location section. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 23:33, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Alternatively, you could drop the stick and step away from the carcass. Rowan Forest (talk) 02:02, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
Rowan Forest, I'd like to make something very clear. This article has been on my watchlist for some time. I came here after seeing the discussion starting to take shape and after reading the comments I was expecting there to be no reliable sources and this to be some crackpot theory dreamed up on a forum or quackery website. To my surprise when I looked for sources, I found a great number of reliable sources commenting on it, including MIT Technology Review and Science Mag, sources that I would otherwise as-good-as-it-gets for popular science reporting. Additionally, the paper was written by two quite reputable physicists that work for respected universities. I honestly have no idea why you and others are so loathe to include even mention of the paper or hypothesis anywhere in the article. And the way you guys have treated Soap and others here represents the worst of wikipedia.
I have proposed a compromise in my last edit (to include it in one of the other sections instead). I spent quite a bit of my time reviewing the sources and the authors here, and preparing as neutral of an inclusion as I could to propose to you guys. And you instead respond with merely a one-line dismissal? — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 02:51, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
No one is arguing those aren't reliable sources. They are saying those sources lack pertinent information as legitimate alternative hypotheses. In other words, any alternative hypothesis on the article has to show not just the "what", but the "why" and "how" of it. Those sources do little more than supplant the new planet hypothesis with that of a blackhole; essentially hitchhiking off someone else's work right until the finish line, but then saying "instead, it's a blackhole!" They don't show how they arrived at that possibility or why that is a feasible idea, especially knowing these PBH's are hypothetical to begin with. They haven't done a lick of work except type behind the keyboard. Frankly, there's no substance to the sources - at least not defined by the needs of this article (which is important to stress). The sources are just speculation and speculation does not science make, regardless of who's doing it. As for the pedigree of this article, the bar is higher here. If this article had a lower standard like the theories behind the disappearance of Flight 370 than PBH would be right at home. As for who's treating users poorly, I'm not sure what you're talking about. Leitmotiv (talk) 03:49, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
Leitmotiv, That's kinda why I suggested that you were right about not listing it as an 'alternative hypothesis'. I suggested a couple of sentences either in the 'Origin' section or the 'Visibility and location' section. It seems as if you guys aren't keen on that, but I appreciate you sharing your reasoning nonetheless. My opinion is that any info covered widely by multiple reliable sources should be included in some form (if only to head off conspiracy theorists and quacks), but I can understand your viewpoint. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 21:08, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
I think it should really be mentioned, even then its only a sentence under "Alternative hypotheses". Maybe like: Anohter more controversial theory that gained world-wide media attention is that Planet Nine may be a primordial black hole. It does not need its own section though. -Koppapa (talk) 04:57, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
What is your source? It’s not controversial. It’s a counter factual, non-scientific proposa in pop culture media. This is no different than the Nibiru cataclysm nonsense. We could have a section about nonsense and pseudoscience related to Planet Nine to warn the reader that these fairy tales have no basis in fact. Jehochman Talk

@Insertcleverphrasehere: Planet 9 hypothesis is based on the observation of the dynamics of some existing solar system bodies. Invoking a non-peer-reviewed fictional phenomena in this article is extremely fringe and not useful. Since you are so emotionally invested in this particular idea, you may want to create a fork article, where you guys can freely compilate the "world-wide media attention headlines", undiluted by the mainstream hypotheses. It worked for Life on Mars. Rowan Forest (talk) 14:49, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

I agree it makes sense to add the content to the main PBH article but I dont think it should be either/or. I still have the same opinion I had when I started this discussion but if consensus is against it I guess thats just the way it's going to be .... I expect a peer-reviewed article for the PBH theory to appear soon, anyhow. —Soap— 21:23, 6 December 2019 (UTC)
Soap Yes to a note in the PBH article. But in scientific language it is a hypothesis, not theory. Cheers, Rowan Forest (talk) 00:15, 8 December 2019 (UTC)
There is already an entry on this at Primordial black hole. Rowan Forest (talk) 19:09, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

We need to add PBH to see also.Slatersteven (talk) 14:35, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Slatersteven With no reason why it is there, and no obvious connection to the article topic itself, that seems rather out of context. It would make much more sense to simply state somewhere in the article about the PBH hypothesis and the wide coverage it received. It seems that some are vehemently opposed to this though. For interest, one of the authors has published an FAQ about the article: [31]. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 01:54, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I have made a post at the Fringe Theories Noticeboard asking for wider input on this. — Insertcleverphrasehere (or here)(click me!) 03:30, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Trans-Neptunian objects found in the first four years of the Dark Energy Survey

New paper mentions "...seven extreme TNOs (a > 150 AU, q > 30 AU), including one a > 250 AU object new to this work." though the new one (a~285 AU, i~24) is only shown on plot. I guess the data will be released after paper is accepted. Agmartin (talk) 21:40, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Tilted Ecliptic

In the section on evidence for Planet 9, you all have left out what I consider to be one of the most compelling arguments for Planet 9: It can explain the tilt of the ecliptic with respect to the equator of the Sun (or vice versa). See :https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-3881/153/1/27/meta and :https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/curious-tilt-sun-traced-undiscovered-planet-52710 . That the ecliptic is offset from the Sun's equator by 6 degrees had not had a coherent explanation before. There are other possible explanations for this effect, but its being predicted by the Planet 9 hypothesis is still strong evidence for Planet 9. I regret that I lack time to edit the article myself right now. EMS | Talk 21:36, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

Read the section titled: Batygin and Brown hypothesis. Cheers, Rowan Forest (talk) 23:08, 4 July 2019 (UTC)
See section 5.5 pages 59-60 of The Planet Nine Hypothesis.
Right. The theory about tilted ecliptic was originally supported by research, but later studies showed that it could be independent of Planet Nine, so it's not evidence. Science works this way. Later work can overrule earlier work. Jehochman Talk 22:08, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

EPSCDPS

The combined European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) and American Astronomical Society's Division of Planetary Sciences is this week. The first bit of Planet Nine related info via twitter:

Trujillo carefully using his and Sheppard's survey simulator to reproduce the result of Shankman et al. 2017 for survey biases in the detection of extreme TNOs, to show the simulator works well. Find a 2.5σ strength for ETNO alignment; combining surveys a challenge #EPSCDPS2019

https://twitter.com/astrokiwi/status/1173549963932033024 Agmartin (talk) 19:51, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

The questions is, can these simulators point in which direction to look? Rowan Forest (talk) 20:54, 16 September 2019 (UTC)


Leigh Fletcher @LeighFletcher Day five of #EPSCDPS2019. A few years ago, discovered a collection of distant Kuiper Belt Objects preferentially aligned in one direction. Is it real? Bias? Random chance? Brown suggests you can’t explain this without the existence of a large world in the distant solar system.

Brown: Original observations suggested the planet had to be tilted with respect to the plane of the solar system, semi-major axis of 700 AU, eccentricity 0.7, inclination 30 degrees, mass of 10 Earth masses. Last three years spent pinning down these parameters. #EPSCDPS2019

Brown: As you change these planetary mass/orbit parameters, you get different modelled structures/clusters in the population of bodies in the outer solar system. Then use the real, observed object population to calculate the likelihood of each model. Brown: Now proposing parameters for this world of a ~300 AU orbit, eccentricity of 0.15, inclination 17 deg, 6±1 Earth masses. Is this #Planet9 scattered from the Uranus/Neptune region out into the distant orbit, or some other formation mechanism? #EPSCDPS2019

Brown: From all this, can’t actually tell *where* the planet would be on its orbit, but ruling out perihelion positions (i.e., closest point to the Sun). Surveys ongoing to actually prove that this world really exists. Brown’s confident it’s there. #EPSCDPS2019

https://twitter.com/LeighFletcher/status/1174969729791885312 Agmartin (talk) 16:49, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

I thought I had seen those numbers before: Mike Brown@plutokiller Replying to @borkwilly I'm going with 310 AU and 17 degrees these days, tbh 12:09 PM · Feb 15, 2019 https://twitter.com/plutokiller/status/1096471558271393792" Agmartin (talk) 20:47, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Also in this article https://longreads.com/2019/01/22/the-hunt-for-planet-nine/ Agmartin (talk) 21:25, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Michiel Lambrechts @denderendaver 12h Starting off @plutokiller:‘I am just gonna say planet 9 is out there.’ #epscdps2019 @plutokiller means current data on wide orbit minor bodies has very low probability (<%) to be not a planet.) @plutokiller start thinking of in situ formation because of low eccentricity 0.1 https://twitter.com/denderendaver/status/1174967530483404801 Agmartin (talk) 21:32, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Interesting image if you click on that link Agmartin (talk) 21:33, 20 September 2019 (UTC)

Perspectives on the distribution of orbits of distant Trans-Neptunian Objects

Book chapter on arXiv. Discusses observing biases and alternate origins for high perihelion objects, appears to be primarily material from previous papers. Agmartin (talk) 20:23, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Phrasing

“Only two planets, Uranus and Neptune, have been discovered in recorded history.” Surely this sentence means “within our solar system”, as hundreds of planets have been discovered around other stars! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.82.107.189 (talk) 05:14, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Sometimes the term "exoplanet" is used to denote all planets outside our solar system but I agree that it's better to be clear so I changed it. —Soap— 06:05, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

TESS could find it says Holman et al

Interesting paper, perhaps worthy of mention in the Detection attempts/Searches of existing data section, 'A TESS Search for Distant Solar System Planets: A Feasibility Study': https://arxiv.org/pdf/1910.06383.pdf (In due course once the ArXiv'd paper is peer reviewed and published.) They conclude: "The hypothesized Planet Nine [...] has an expected magnitude of 19 < V < 24 [...], raising the possibility that TESS could discover it!" Assscroft (talk) 04:24, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

And the follow-up paper should be mentioned also (when officially published), 'A TESS Search for Distant Solar System Objects: Yield Estimates': https://arxiv.org/pdf/1911.03676.pdf. The technique in the first paper is about stacking hundreds of TESS images to amplify dim movements. The authors suggest that anything up to ~22 magnitude could be detected. And that feasibly detectable movements of 5 TESS pixels (105 arcseconds) between images would be capable of spotting solar system objects 900AU away. (If I understand it correctly.) Assscroft (talk) 01:24, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Latest paper on arxiv

This one is best ignored: The Orbit of Planet Nine Derived from Engineering Physics Agmartin (talk) 17:50, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Very interesting. I wonder if the corrected period to 3500 years means Brown is looking in the wrong place if their methods are accurate? Leitmotiv (talk) 18:12, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
I read it because that bit reminded me of once reading somewhere that Brown favored a semi-major axis of 310 AU. But the ways it arrives at many of the orbital elements don't make sense. Agmartin (talk) 18:25, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
doesn't make sense to me. I thought that the clustered objects are actually unaffected by P9 unlike others that have been thrown off, (like a knife slicing thru a cake). So how do the authors argue that orbital parameters of clustered objects are influenced by P9, which is so far away, when compared to the sun !? J mareeswaran (talk) 11:17, 7 February 2020 (UTC)
The aligned ones tend to get ejected, the anti-aligned ones get their perihelia lifted like Sedna's then drop later with a similar alignment. Agmartin (talk) 00:06, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Section Naming

The section writes of just two discovered planets: Uranus and Neptune. While Pluto is no longer considered a planet by the IAU, it was considered a planet immediately at discovery and was named accordingly. That should be mentioned there. The issue came up in the discovery of Eris. Therefore, the IAU established the new definition of planet. Since Pluto was considered a planet it should be added to where Uranus and Neptune stand. 212.186.15.63 (talk) 17:49, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Why should it? What does it add to our understanding of Planet 9?Slatersteven (talk) 18:01, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
The section is about the naming procedure of planets. It mentions Uranus and Neptune. However the procedure included Pluto too because it was considered a planet. It was the same procedure Uranus and Neptune went through. Therefore Pluto should also be mentioned there. And it's not like more information would hurt you. 212.186.15.63 (talk) 18:19, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
^That has nothing to do with naming, it has to do with the definition of what constitutes a planet. It tells us zero about how this planet will be named.Slatersteven (talk) 10:07, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
I see no reason to add every single planet or minor planet. Two is enough, if not one too many. Adding Pluto adds nothing to the article. Leitmotiv (talk) 22:19, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
You said yourself "adding Pluto" so it is added and it must because the section talks of bodies that went through the naming procedure of planets. You aren't able to explain why Pluto shouldn't be added. Even if you think it's unnecessary you don't have to delete it. 212.186.15.63 (talk) 06:25, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
So, it tells us nothing about the procedure, and in fact now tells us nothing about when they were named or what is significant about them. Pluto should not be added as it is now not a planet and its former status is not relevant to how a new planet would be named.Slatersteven (talk) 10:07, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
Obviously you're not interested in leading a constructive debate. You simply don't want any mention of Pluto. That is nonsense. 212.186.15.63 (talk) 12:52, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
If you mean "I do not see what relevance Pluto has to an as yet unnamed and (indeed) undiscovered planet)" the answer is yes, I do not see a need to mention it And now you have added another irrelevant planatoid.Slatersteven (talk) 13:08, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

The problem here is that, upon their discovery, the first 5 or 6 asteroids to be discovered were also considered planets upon their discovery. Even when they were reclassified as explicitly not planets, that didn't stop the pattern of Greco-Roman names being used for them. Additionally, by the time of the 21st century, since we're running pretty low on those names, the IAU's policy is that such names are to be reserved (with rare exception) for objects that fall under their 2006 definition of "planet". That's their rule, whether one agrees with it or not. Eris was one such exception simply because of the debate it caused, earning a Greco-Roman name because it was formally considered as such/debated to be for so long, even in light of the IAU definition. With as much debate as this is causing, it might just benefit everyone to go with more neutral wording, along the lines of noting that if P9 exists and is discovered to fall under the IAU's criteria for a planet, it would receive a G-R name as per modern conventions. 134340Goat (talk) 20:37, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Testing the isotropy of the Dark Energy Survey's extreme trans-Neptunian objects

New paper discussing possible clustering in the orbital elements of eTNOs. Finds some difference with isotropic distribution in longitudes of ascending nodes, but overall argues that it is not significant because of small number of objects and multiple tests used. Agmartin (talk) 02:11, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Paper also mentions inconclusive analysis beginning on page 88 in Hamilton's thesis. That chapter mentions another unpublished work combining data from multiple surveys, discussed in this abstract without giving the results. Maybe that last one will not be so wishy-washy when it finally is published. Agmartin (talk) 03:00, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
Good to know, thanks. I wasnt sure what to make of this story when I saw it ... pop science said "Planet Nine is next!" but it looks like it might actually make the case for Planet Nine's existence less likely. —Soap— 23:26, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

7 more extreme TNOs

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4365/ab6bd8

2601:602:9200:1310:708B:11BD:2FBE:CA9 (talk) 06:46, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

I believe those with semimajor axis larger than 250 AU are on this list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_trans-Neptunian_object, arXiv version of article is here if you wish to double check https://arxiv.org/abs/1909.01478 Agmartin (talk) 05:32, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
(Replacing previous edit.) I checked the table, which can be accessed via Arxiv. There are four objects with a>250 AU (2013 RA109, 2015 BP519, 2013 SL102 and 2014 WB556), all of which are already in the Wikipedia list. Renerpho (talk) 05:15, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

What do they RS say?Slatersteven (talk) 09:48, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Planet 9 from Outer Space

There is no such film, not made by Ed Wood or anyone else, the film is Plan 9 from Outer Space.Slatersteven (talk) 22:20, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

and? The article makes the distinction clear. Serendipodous 22:22, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
Then why are we trying to link to a non existent film title, rather then the actual film (see the recent edit history)?Slatersteven (talk) 22:24, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
An IP changed the wording to "Planet 9". Slatersteven fixed it, someone else changed it back, and Slatersteven reverted it back to the correct name. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 22:27, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
Thus I raised it here for future reference as much as anything else.Slatersteven (talk) 22:40, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Captured from lost twin of the Sun!?

DID THE SUN HAVE A TWIN? NEW STUDY REWRITES THE STAR'S EARLY HISTORY

Through his research on binary star systems, Siraj knew that these systems were much more efficient at capturing objects than lone stars. Based on that, he created a model of the Sun as part of a binary system, along with a companion star.

The stars would have been approximately 1,500 Astronomical Units apart and orbited around their shared center of mass until a passing star sort of split the binary duo and kicked out the companion, according to the study.

As a binary system, the two stars would be able to capture the number of objects in the Oort cloud, as well as a ninth, distant planet. On its own, a lone Sun would not be capable of the same.

The model increases the chances that Planet Nine was captured by a factor of 20, according to the researchers

J mareeswaran (talk) 01:36, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

The actual letter. Primefac (talk) 13:45, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

ArXiv edition for ease of reading Assscroft (talk) 23:17, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

I would suggest adding a brief sentence on this to the 'Origins' section. (Now done, thanks team.) Assscroft (talk) 23:26, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

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