NASA schedules news briefing about unusual solar object

Michael Brown, the scientist mentioned in the press release, is the co-discoverer of Quaoar and the recent 2004 DW. It's not clear if this is about the latter or something new, but I suppose we'll find out on Monday.

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So it begins....

... a little late...

...on Mayan time?

Excuse me, I'll be hiding under my bed.

ETA: 2004 DW

Anybody know any insiders, rumours, maybe a great detection of some more kupier objects?

On very little evidence, I suspect that a large object and perhaps a companion have been found, further out than Pluto but otherwise similar.

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I suppose Nancy has already made good use of this....

Not her yet but it is getting around. See here.

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It's probably not 2004 DW, because

which it definitely is not. How distant is the most distant (not counting comets)? Some scattered disc objects have semimajor axes well over 100 AUs... If Spitzer found something that far, could it be anything but a planet-sized body?

Then why would it be mysterious? Maybe it's a cloud...

I thought most known KBOs were around 100km across, if astronomers can spot KBOs that small, it is quite possible that they could spot a larger one further out.

it's planet x!!!! the reptilians are coming!!! they are going to enslave us and use our children in salads!!! aaaaaaah!!!

Do NASA normally have press conferences to announce discoveries of large KBO's ? - This one must be pretty special then, or maybe its because its a discovery made with the new Spitzer Observatory?

Spitzer is sensitive to infrared, and that's the best place to look for these distant objects. The fact that it's the most distant seen is good enough for a press conference.

I don't think it's bigger than Pluto, or, at least, that they think it might be bigger. If so, they wouldn't have announced the press conference that way. They would have been more vague. So I'm pretty sure it's what they say: the most distant object. If it were something they thought might be bigger than Pluto, then I'd expect Hubble to be used to try to resolve it. I didn't see anything in the archive that looked like that might be it.

What strikes me as possibly curious is the choice of terms such as "mysterious object" and "Unusual Solar Object" in the title. One might infer there-from that this means the object has unique properties, perhaps other than being "the most distant object ever detected orbiting the sun." There are, for example, a number of icy planetesimals in the Kuiper belt beyond Pluto, some of which, due to highly eccentric orbits, have aphelions in excess of 1000 AU.

To interested parties here's a link to an interesting post to the MPML:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mpml/message/11848
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I'd like to believe Brown's team found something *really* interesting (e.g. 'Nemesis' [q.v.] - *NOT* to be confused in *any way* with PX!!!)

You will please forgive my 'romanticism' where all things celestial are concerned -- I never did quite 'get over' my disappointment at the emergence of the (now accepted and proved) fact that Jupiter is a non-terrestrial body --- To this day, while regarding images of said planet, I all but pine for the rugged landscape which dosen't sprawl, dark and enchanting, beneath that enigmatic 'veil'...

Sincerely
Dan Sarandon

PS - Thanks, To-Seek, for the 're-direct' to this thread! :-)

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Here's a BBC report from 2002 also citing Michael Brown:

Click on the link above for the complete report.

This may be a stupid question but I am really not sure how orbiting works in space.

Is it safe to assume that since this object is orbiting the sun and is so far off that this will not be something that can pose a threat to earth.

Maybe they found sol b.

*crosses fingers*

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It depends. Odds are that the object in question has at least a roughly circular orbit and will therefore stay out there in the fringes of the solar system like Pluto and the Kuiper Belt objects. However, many comets have highly elliptical orbits, so that they go out billions of kilometers away from the Sun but come back again. They are at least a potential threat, but space is still awfully big to be worrying about one random object.

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In response to BmpBmp:

A 'worst case scenario' (Re: interference with Earth) may be found in be the 'Nemesis' theory (please pardon my abuse of the term!) - which holds that a relatively massive Oort cloud object periodically 'showers' the inner solar-system with 'preturbates' (i.e. comets & their ilk) -- said debris being perturbed in a fashion analogous to the 'wake' of an ocean-going vessel (albeit ‘inversely’ so)... Please note however that statistical analysis does *not* support said theory!!! :-)

In any event the cosmos is a MACROscopic system! --- Please try to place matters in perspective! - As individuals - indeed as a species - our time is just to brief to offer us significant 'exposure'... :-)

Best regards
Dan Sarandon

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I really dont understand what the last 2 posts meant.

sorry

Hmmm..... I'm thinking, what with adjectives such as 'unusual' and 'mysterious' that perhaps we're talking something of the nature of a not-so-giant GMC??? :-)

OBTW --- There is little cause for concern that the object has a 'dangerous' orbit!!! --- The term 'distant' (in this sense) properly refers to an object's entire orbit - not merely its instantaneous position

Sincerely
Dan Sarandon

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