Remember hypothetical Planet Nine from outer space? Famous and not so famous planetary astronomers are scanning the heavens way past the known outer giants looking for any sign of it as we speak. But some of the best evidence for the possibility of a ninth planet (okay, ten planets; if you want to start an ugly cosmic flame war) was the oddities in the orbits of a dozen or so smaller Pluto-like trans-Neptunian Objects or TNOs. But some new work suggests those orbital anomalies are so much magic space dust:
Most importantly, what they found was entirely consistent with no Planet Nine, and that the overall case for Planet Nine's existence was substantially weakened by their study. In particular, the clustering in the orientation of each orbit in space (defined by multiple variables, ω and Ω) that earlier studies, like Batygin & Brown and Trujillo & Sheppard, previously noticed simply doesn't exist in this new, unbiased study.
Which is kind of depressing. I think we all like the idea of a big ice giant or mysterious super-Earth hiding out in the gloom of the extreme outer solar system. But some of the best finds in science have been made when researchers were looking based on what turned out to be false assumptions.
- Maybe it’ll make you feel better, maybe it won’t, but the US is not the only nation with a few misogynistic woo-pitching nuts scattered throughout the medical sciences:
India's government is advising pregnant women to avoid all meat, eggs and lusty thoughts. Doctors say the advice is preposterous, and even dangerous, considering India's already-poor record with maternal health. Women are often the last to eat or receive health care in traditionally patriarchal Indian households.
-
The first day of summer arrived this week in the northern hemisphere you live. One would think the summer solstice has the latest sunset and/or earliest sunrise, both on the same day. But it doesn’t actually work out that way. Check out EarthSky for some insight. Speaking of summer and solar events, the total solar eclipse grand US tour is now less than two months away: Do we need some sort of coordination post soon discussing where you hope to be on Aug 21, 2017?
- It’s only June and several systems have broken out of the Caribbean chaos to become tropical storms or near misses. Which means it’s that time of year to go ahead and bookmark the WeatherUnderground, where you’ll find crowd-sourced weather science and commentary, and topnotch storm meteorologists!
- Kepler is on its second life and the erstwhile little spacecraft offered up what might be sort of a goodbye exo-world data dump that reveals both cruel worlds and, possibly, a few far more friendly ones:
NASA’s Kepler space telescope team has released a mission catalog of planet candidates that introduces 219 new planet candidates, 10 of which are near-Earth size and orbiting in their star's habitable zone, which is the range of distance from a star where liquid water could pool on the surface of a rocky planet.