Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: Alan McDougall on 17/11/2008 17:30:56
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Hi
8 The Kuiper cliff
IF YOU travel out to the far edge of the solar system, into the frigid wastes beyond Pluto, you'll see something strange. Suddenly, after passing through the Kuiper belt, a region of space teeming with icy rocks, there's nothing.
Astronomers call this boundary the Kuiper cliff, because the density of space rocks drops off so steeply. What caused it? The only answer seems to be a 10th planet. We're not talking about Quaoar or Sedna: this is a massive object, as big as Earth or Mars, that has swept the area clean of debris.
The evidence for the existence of "Planet X" is compelling, says Alan Stern, an astronomer at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. But although calculations show that such a body could account for the Kuiper cliff (Icarus, vol 160, p 32), no one has ever seen this fabled 10th planet.
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Possibly a resonance effect like sand on a vibrating Chladni plate accumulating at nodes, (some of which are sharply defined rings)...
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf0t4qIVWF4 Warning: Loud sound.
(I'm getting Déjà vu)
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RD
I split the questions into separate parts and thank you for reposting again on this thread
Alan
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Again have patience and continue observing the moving faint object detection cameras are working very hard and may evenually cover the important area. The detection of the object would be interesting but not spectacular.
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It's possible that the planet is no longer there and may have migrated further in to the solar system. Uranus is weird enough for a lot of things, but I think it's low orbital eccentricity argues against it having moved from somewhere else to it's current position. Pluto, on the other hand, does have quite an eccentric orbit, it's furthest out (most of the time) and it's small enough to be moved and stopped but big enough to herd.