Author Topic: Dwarf planet discovery hints at a hidden Super Earth in solar system  (Read 296830 times)

Offline JH

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We are trying to get rid of imperial measurement in most of the world not encourage it.

He was not promoting the use of imperial units, he was saying that if you are going to give a converted estimate (because, as much as many people go into conniptions at the prospect, hundreds of millions of people think in miles) you should not give a false sense of the accuracy by giving an exact conversion. The diameter is only known to be roughly 300 km, therefore it is more correct to say 200 miles, rather than 186 miles.

Offline Alpha_Centauri

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Sensationalist reporting really damages people's understanding of science. [snip]

Thanks Alpha. You expressed my sentiments far better than I did.
By no means am I discounting the possibility of the shepherding being accounted for by a massive TNO/Ort Cloud disk. What I am saying is, exactly as you expressed, articles like that do more damage than good for the scientific community. When a researcher proposes something they need to (1) present some solid empirical data that actually supports their theory and (2) acknowledge all known shortcomings of their theory and provide at least some genuinely reasonable arguments adjudicating the shortcomings. The referenced article did acknowledge the massive mass shortcoming but not as a shortcoming - and - separated the required mass vs. the scientifically accepted mass by several paragraphs, a shortcoming that the casual reader would thus have totally missed.
I despair when I see articles posted on the latest about Planet Nine and you get a whole host of "but I thought Planet 9 was disproved months ago?" comments from folks.  This constant back and forth over the "facts" generates mistrust of scientists and science itself.

I can't exactly blame them for being confused, headlines like this article's are irresponsible.  Even if the article does (somewhat) clarify the situation further down the page the damage has already been done.


Yes to be clear I'm not arguing in favour or against either idea (just that the disk idea is no more compelling, and not without issues), the real problem is the way journalists inject fake drama into the whole thing and distort what the scientific consensus on the topic is.
« Last Edit: 01/21/2019 05:25 pm by Alpha_Centauri »

Offline vjkane

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Yes to be clear I'm not arguing in favour or against either idea (just that the disk idea is no more compelling, and not without issues), the real problem is the way journalists inject fake drama into the whole thing and distort what the scientific consensus on the topic is.
Models are only representation of known or possible relationships between data.  They are all wrong to some degree or other.  In this case, the data are sparse and have multiple possible explanations and therefore modeled relationships.  That causes scientists to propose multiple, competing explanations.  Eventually, one model (or type of model) tends to be accepted by the community.  In this case, that could come from finding another large planet, no discovery of a planet for a long time (although you can't prove a negative, just convince most knowledgeable folks that it is highly unlikely), or someone comes up with a model that fits the data much better than any current attempt.

So the back and forth is to be expected.

Offline faramund

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Sensationalist reporting really damages people's understanding of science. [snip]

Thanks Alpha. You expressed my sentiments far better than I did.
By no means am I discounting the possibility of the shepherding being accounted for by a massive TNO/Ort Cloud disk. What I am saying is, exactly as you expressed, articles like that do more damage than good for the scientific community. When a researcher proposes something they need to (1) present some solid empirical data that actually supports their theory and (2) acknowledge all known shortcomings of their theory and provide at least some genuinely reasonable arguments adjudicating the shortcomings. The referenced article did acknowledge the massive mass shortcoming but not as a shortcoming - and - separated the required mass vs. the scientifically accepted mass by several paragraphs, a shortcoming that the casual reader would thus have totally missed.

I strongly disagree that (1) is needed. Large amounts of science is built on hypothesis, i.e. a theory that might be correct. This frequently happens, and then later science tries to find stronger evidence either for or against that theory. Its not uncommon in science for there to be multiple conflicting theories that attempt to explain some situation/effect. Some of those theories will be considered stronger, because they have more evidence, and some weaker, maybe being not much stronger than a thought bubble. I'm completely happy with this, and really, I can't imagine any functional alternative.

Offline Alpha_Centauri

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Yes to be clear I'm not arguing in favour or against either idea (just that the disk idea is no more compelling, and not without issues), the real problem is the way journalists inject fake drama into the whole thing and distort what the scientific consensus on the topic is.
Models are only representation of known or possible relationships between data.  They are all wrong to some degree or other.  In this case, the data are sparse and have multiple possible explanations and therefore modeled relationships.  That causes scientists to propose multiple, competing explanations.  Eventually, one model (or type of model) tends to be accepted by the community.  In this case, that could come from finding another large planet, no discovery of a planet for a long time (although you can't prove a negative, just convince most knowledgeable folks that it is highly unlikely), or someone comes up with a model that fits the data much better than any current attempt.

So the back and forth is to be expected.
I'm not talking about how science works, i'm talking about how it is communicated. 

When I speak of back and forth I mean sensationalist headlines of "model disproves X", when it does nothing of the sort, then almost equally certain statements when a counter-study comes along saying "new model proves X".  Eventually people just give up and come to the conclusion scientists haven't a clue.
« Last Edit: 01/21/2019 09:52 pm by Alpha_Centauri »

Offline whitelancer64

Most scientists do do those things.

What's really lacking is the media reports. Clickbait headlines that don't convey what the science actually shows.
"One bit of advice: it is important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree -- make sure you understand the fundamental principles, ie the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang on to." - Elon Musk
"There are lies, damned lies, and launch schedules." - Larry J

Offline Star One

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Yes to be clear I'm not arguing in favour or against either idea (just that the disk idea is no more compelling, and not without issues), the real problem is the way journalists inject fake drama into the whole thing and distort what the scientific consensus on the topic is.
Models are only representation of known or possible relationships between data.  They are all wrong to some degree or other.  In this case, the data are sparse and have multiple possible explanations and therefore modeled relationships.  That causes scientists to propose multiple, competing explanations.  Eventually, one model (or type of model) tends to be accepted by the community.  In this case, that could come from finding another large planet, no discovery of a planet for a long time (although you can't prove a negative, just convince most knowledgeable folks that it is highly unlikely), or someone comes up with a model that fits the data much better than any current attempt.

So the back and forth is to be expected.
I'm not talking about how science works, i'm talking about how it is communicated. 

When I speak of back and forth I mean sensationalist headlines of "model disproves X", when it does nothing of the sort, then almost equally certain statements when a counter-study comes along saying "new model proves X".  Eventually people just give up and come to the conclusion scientists haven't a clue.

Are you going to continue to take this thread off topic with your anti-media crusade you seem to be on at the moment?

Offline Alpha_Centauri

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Talking about how the Planet 9 debate is being presented is hardly off topic, if you don't like it don't read it and stick to  shitposting about aliens.


Anyway, speaking of the devil here's Brown and Batygin's new "new model proves X" paper.

http://web.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/papers/ps/clustering.pdf

Quote
ORBITAL CLUSTERING IN THE DISTANT SOLAR SYSTEM

The most distant Kuiper belt objects appear to be clustered in longitude of perihelion and in
orbital pole position. To date, the only two suggestions for the cause of these apparent clusterings
have been either the effects of observational bias or the existence of the distant giant planet in an
eccentric inclined orbit known as Planet Nine. To determine if observational bias can be the cause of
these apparent clusterings, we develop a rigorous method of quantifying the observational biases in
the observations of longitude of perihelion and orbital pole position. From this now more complete
understanding of the biases we calculate that the probability that these distant Kuiper belt objects
would be clustered as strongly as observed in both longitude of perihelion and in orbital pole position
is only 0.2%. While explanations other than Planet Nine may someday be found, the statistical
significance of this clustering is now difficult to discount.
« Last Edit: 01/21/2019 10:39 pm by Alpha_Centauri »

Offline Star One

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Talking about how the Planet 9 debate is being presented is hardly off topic, if you don't like it don't read it and stick to  shitposting about aliens.


Anyway, speaking of the devil here's Brown and Batygin's new "new model proves X" paper.

http://web.gps.caltech.edu/~mbrown/papers/ps/clustering.pdf

Quote
ORBITAL CLUSTERING IN THE DISTANT SOLAR SYSTEM

The most distant Kuiper belt objects appear to be clustered in longitude of perihelion and in
orbital pole position. To date, the only two suggestions for the cause of these apparent clusterings
have been either the effects of observational bias or the existence of the distant giant planet in an
eccentric inclined orbit known as Planet Nine. To determine if observational bias can be the cause of
these apparent clusterings, we develop a rigorous method of quantifying the observational biases in
the observations of longitude of perihelion and orbital pole position. From this now more complete
understanding of the biases we calculate that the probability that these distant Kuiper belt objects
would be clustered as strongly as observed in both longitude of perihelion and in orbital pole position
is only 0.2%. While explanations other than Planet Nine may someday be found, the statistical
significance of this clustering is now difficult to discount.

I think this new article by Jason Wright about SETI & how it’s treated by some scientists rather neatly answers your childish comment about my supposed posting about aliens. And for want going off topic myself is sufficient a response.

https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2019/01/21/oumuamua-seti-and-the-media/

Online LouScheffer

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It would be a decent working theory if it weren't for that *massive* mass discrepancy ...

It's not obvious to me that there is a mass discrepancy.   The 'Planet 9' folks are positing a 10 Earth mass planet.  So in both case there are 10 Earth masses of material in the Kuiper belt.  In one case it's combined into a planet; in the other it has remained small objects in a disc.  And if the P9 folks can barely see a 10 Earth mass planet, why could there not be 100 x 0.1 Earth mass planetoids, or 1000 x 0.01 Earth mass planetoids?   

I'm not saying I believe in the disk theory, just that the mass discrepancy is not as strong a hypothesis-killer as it might seem, since the best alternative (P9) also has the same total mass in the Kuiper belt.

Offline libra

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1 miles = 1.609 km
100 miles = 160 km
200 miles = 320 km

Offline Bynaus

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Offline Alpha_Centauri

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It would be a decent working theory if it weren't for that *massive* mass discrepancy ...

It's not obvious to me that there is a mass discrepancy.   The 'Planet 9' folks are positing a 10 Earth mass planet.  So in both case there are 10 Earth masses of material in the Kuiper belt.  In one case it's combined into a planet; in the other it has remained small objects in a disc.  And if the P9 folks can barely see a 10 Earth mass planet, why could there not be 100 x 0.1 Earth mass planetoids, or 1000 x 0.01 Earth mass planetoids?   

I'm not saying I believe in the disk theory, just that the mass discrepancy is not as strong a hypothesis-killer as it might seem, since the best alternative (P9) also has the same total mass in the Kuiper belt.

The point is if such a disk existed then the lowest-perihelion and largest members would likely have been found already, and the effect they would have on TNO population statistics would imply a large missing mass.  However empirical studies of TNOs shows no evidence of a great reservoir of undiscovered objects, hence the mass discrepancy.  Sure there may be some reason why we haven't seen it, but as things stand it is an issue that does make the disk idea less convincing.

It's easier to hide a 10 Mearth point source than a 10 Mearth disk.
« Last Edit: 01/22/2019 06:39 pm by Alpha_Centauri »

Offline Star One

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New article from Mike Brown.

Is Planet Nine just a ring of icy bodies?

Quote
Finally, however, after three years, a new hypothesis has been proposed which can at least explain the alignments without Planet Nine. The basic trick is to take Planet Nine and split it up into a massive ring of bodies on an eccentric inclined orbit like that of Planet Nine’s. Because Planet Nine’s long distance gravitational effects are mostly caused by the long term average position of Planet Nine (which is basically an inclined eccentric ring!) this ring has more or less the same effects that Planet Nine has. (For the aficionados out there, read this as "Planet Nine's interactions are predominantly secular rather than resonant.")

I am happy that there is finally an alternative explanation, even if that alternative is only Planet-Nine-ground-up-into-a-ring.

Offline tappa

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Just read on twitter that Mike Brown & Konstantin Batygin are going back to Subaru for further observations. What could this mean? Since they were at Subaru in December, does it mean that they found something & they are going back to confirm? There has been total radio silence on planet 9 from both Mike & Konstantin.

If there is any verified news please point me to it. Thanks

Offline Star One

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Just read on twitter that Mike Brown & Konstantin Batygin are going back to Subaru for further observations. What could this mean? Since they were at Subaru in December, does it mean that they found something & they are going back to confirm? There has been total radio silence on planet 9 from both Mike & Konstantin.

If there is any verified news please point me to it. Thanks

Can I ask where you saw this as I cannot see anything on either of their Twitter threads?

Was it this? And I wonder if he was meant to say anything.

https://twitter.com/astrosumo/status/1093033743252508673
« Last Edit: 02/06/2019 03:09 pm by Star One »

Offline Bynaus

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Just read on twitter that Mike Brown & Konstantin Batygin are going back to Subaru for further observations. What could this mean? Since they were at Subaru in December, does it mean that they found something & they are going back to confirm? There has been total radio silence on planet 9 from both Mike & Konstantin.

If there is any verified news please point me to it. Thanks

As I understand it, the data reduction on their fall run is not done yet. With the new run, they are just covering additional "territory" (areas of the sky where P9 could be). If they had found something they wanted to confirm, they would not go back to Subaru, but use a telescope with a more narrow field of view and better resolution / sensitivity. Subaru is great for looking simultaneously at large areas of the sky, which is what you want to do if you are searching for an object like P9.
More of my thoughts: www.final-frontier.ch (in German)

Offline Star One

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Just read on twitter that Mike Brown & Konstantin Batygin are going back to Subaru for further observations. What could this mean? Since they were at Subaru in December, does it mean that they found something & they are going back to confirm? There has been total radio silence on planet 9 from both Mike & Konstantin.

If there is any verified news please point me to it. Thanks

As I understand it, the data reduction on their fall run is not done yet. With the new run, they are just covering additional "territory" (areas of the sky where P9 could be). If they had found something they wanted to confirm, they would not go back to Subaru, but use a telescope with a more narrow field of view and better resolution / sensitivity. Subaru is great for looking simultaneously at large areas of the sky, which is what you want to do if you are searching for an object like P9.

The only problem with that idea is Mr Brown usually announces that on his Twitter thread when he’s going out there if it’s a routine pre-planned visit. He hasn’t done so this time.
« Last Edit: 02/06/2019 04:37 pm by Star One »

Offline tappa

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Offline Alpha_Centauri

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There will be a paper out next week, though before anyone gets excited I seem to remember them saying some time ago they were working on a paper on refinements to P9's orbital parameters. I don't think it's a discovery paper.

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