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Here’s how astronomers think they can prove that the new planet 9 on the edge of our solar system exists
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-astr … sts-2016-1
Caltech scientists Mike Brown and Konstantin Batygin caused an uproar last week when they published a paper suggesting the existence of an undiscovered "Planet X" or "Planet 9" on the edge of our solar system.
Their research didn't prove the planet exists, but their analysis of the unusual orbital paths of a clump of dwarf planets in the outer solar system strongly suggests that a big, Neptune-sized planet is lurking out there, tugging on the tiny planets.
This isn't definite proof that the planet exists. We need an actual image of the planet by spotting it through a telescope.
But the problem is that this planet is far away (10 or 20 times the distance of Pluto), and we don't know where in the sky to search for it. We also don't know how much sunlight is reflecting off it, so it might appear very faint even if we can pin down its location.
Which makes it 400 to 800 AU distant, it supposedly has about 10 to 20 Earth masses, about like Uranus or Neptune.
One useful property is it doesn't move much over time. We would probably detect it through parallax, due to shifting of the Earth in its orbit over 6 months, this would reveal a planet that is much closer than the background stars. However long it takes to send a probe to Pluto, it would take about ten times as long for the same probe to reach Planet X, once it is found. Not an impossible situation given that it is still way closer than the nearest star.
It is a possible place to colonize, if not the planet itself, then maybe one of its moons.
In the more distant future, it is both a resource for possible terraformation and interstellar travel. We can use the planet as a fuel source for a fusion reactor powering a giant laser, since the planet doesn't move much, it would serve as a stable platform for aiming a beam of light to say, Alpha Centauri. We could also accelerate a stream of pellets using a mass driver, since it is a small gas giant, it would be easier to get hydrogen out of its atmosphere, maybe accelerate water pellets for a collision with Venus, with the mass drive slowly tracking Venus' expected position in its orbit. Point the mass drive in another direction, and the stream of pellets can be used to accelerate spaceship towards a particular star.
Since this planet moves very slowly, perhaps we can arrest its movement altogether and let it fall towards the Sun, it would take thousands of years to do so, so this is a long term endeavor, but what if it made a close pass by Venus? Maybe we could fling Venus into a wider orbit around the Sun. If we wanted to, maybe we could fling it towards Jupiter, and then Jupiter could give it another gravity assist out of the Solar System towards a particular star, it would take tens of thousands to hundreds of Thousands of years for the rogue Venus to reach a new star, and then a reverse gravity assist with a local gas giant could settle it into a new orbit around a distant star with passengers on the planet.
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The existence of this planet is still speculative and any assumptions about its properties are even more speculative.
As for stopping the planet's orbit and letting it fall towards the sun, how do you intend to achieve that for a body 10 times more massive than Earth? It's kinetic energy is truly enormous, even if it is travelling only slowly. More to point, even if we could, would it be a sensible thing to do? Did you ever watch the movie 'When worlds collide'?
KBOs are a good opportunity for human beings if we are able to harness fusion power at a reasonable cost. One way of doing this is to scale reactors up to kilometre dimensions such that diameter is greater than the typical free path length for a plasma particle or neutron even at the low densities typical within a reactor. Such a reactor can be technologically simple and might not even need super conducting magnets. With a power source like that we can hollow out KBOs and convert them into shell worlds.
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The Kinetic energy of stopping Planet X in its orbit might be less than Moving Venus directly, since Venus is moving faster, closer to the Sun, even though it may be less than one tenth the mass of Planet X If we ever get to the point of moving planets around, it might be more economical to give Planet X a shove, let it fall towards the Sun and have a close flyby of Venus, to swing it further away from the Sun, and you can do this rather quickly. If there is a "Planet Y" out there even further out, we can arrange another close pass by Venus, when it is furthest away from the Sun in its new orbit, to circularize its orbit further from the and Sun, and maybe get to work transforming its atmosphere and shading the planet to cool it down. I think Venus will work best if it is in an orbit further away from the Sun than Earth, somewhere between Earth and Mar's orbit, its thicker atmosphere ought to provide the extra greenhouse effect to compensate for its further distance from the Sun. I think we should also adjust its rotation rate to give it a 24-hour day, but that is trivial to moving Venus into a wider orbit, the tricky part is getting Venus past Earth's orbit without it colliding with Earth, I think a two gas giants would be what it would take to move Venus into a wider circular orbit, Maybe Neptune can be one of those gas giants. Before this happens, perhaps we can move Mercury into orbit around Venus, that way Venus gets a moon.
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The existence of this planet is still speculative and any assumptions about its properties are even more speculative.
As for stopping the planet's orbit and letting it fall towards the sun, how do you intend to achieve that for a body 10 times more massive than Earth? It's kinetic energy is truly enormous, even if it is travelling only slowly. More to point, even if we could, would it be a sensible thing to do? Did you ever watch the movie 'When worlds collide'?
KBOs are a good opportunity for human beings if we are able to harness fusion power at a reasonable cost. One way of doing this is to scale reactors up to kilometre dimensions such that diameter is greater than the typical free path length for a plasma particle or neutron even at the low densities typical within a reactor. Such a reactor can be technologically simple and might not even need super conducting magnets. With a power source like that we can hollow out KBOs and convert them into shell worlds.
More nearer term, Planet X can be a resource for terraforming other planets. Mars and Venus need Water. Getting water or hydrogen off of a low mass gas giant might be easier than getting off the other four gas giants, and the fall towards the Sun takes little energy to accomplish, since only a small change in orbital velocity would be required after achieving the escape velocity from Planet X.
Nearer term still, we might consider terraforming Planet X depending on its composition, is it more of an ice planet or a gas giant? If it is an ice planet, we might consider melting it and turning it into a "water giant" with artificial illumination to serve as the Sun. Maybe one of its moons can serve as a source of hydrogen to power the fusion reactor. The actual rotation of planet X or is axial tilt would matter little, as we would simply arrange for the artificial light source to orbit the planet at just the right rate to provide a 24-hour day/night cycle, adjusting the orbit slowly to produce seasons.
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Did you just say that? "Mars needs water, let's mine a gas giant instead of using those giant balls of ice that we have".
Use what is abundant and build to last
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One thing to do is find planet x but all kidding aside could we be seeing the effects of dark matter cloud or some sort of string filament of dark matter....
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One thing to do is find planet x but all kidding aside could we be seeing the effects of dark matter cloud or some sort of string filament of dark matter....
Could also be a stargate life by some ancient extraterrestrial civilization, most likely though it is a planet, probably a Neptune-sized gas giant.
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