There’s probably another planet in our solar system.

By -
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613060/theres-probably-another-planet-in-our-solar-system/

Source:  By MIT Technology Review.

Excerpt: When it comes to exploring the solar system, astronomers have an embarrassing secret. Despite 400 years of stargazing, they have discovered only two large objects that would have been unknown to the ancients: Uranus in 1781 and Neptune in 1846. That’s not for lack of trying. The possibility of an unknown planet just beyond observational reach has attracted astronomers like moths to a flame. A few have been successful. Several astronomers together discovered Neptune after noticing that the other planets were being gravitationally nudged by an unknown mass. Neptune didn’t entirely resolve these discrepancies, and the hunt continued into the 20th century, culminating in Pluto’s discovery in 1930. But Pluto turned out to be so small that it couldn’t account for the nudging. Indeed, it was later humiliatingly demoted to a “dwarf planet.” ...  

Popular posts from this blog

Stellar remains of famed 1987 supernova found at last

By -
https://www.science.org/content/article/stellar-remains-famed-1987-supernova-found-last By DANIEL CLERY , Science.  Excerpt: When a nearby star exploded in 1987, it created the first supernova visible to the naked eye in 4 centuries and became one of the most intensely studied objects in space. Now, after more than 35 years of searching, researchers have finally discovered the cinder left behind. Using NASA’s new giant space telescope JWST, astronomers spotted  glowing gas at the center of the blast that can only have been energized by something hot and compact inside it , they report this week in Science. They believe a neutron star, all that remains of the shattered star, is responsible.... 
Read more

Planets around dead stars offer glimpse of the Solar System’s future—after the Sun swallows us up

By -
https://www.science.org/content/article/planets-around-dead-stars-offer-glimpse-solar-system-s-future-after-sun-swallows-us By JONATHAN O’CALLAGHAN , Science.  Excerpt: In about 5 billion years the Sun will balloon up into a red giant, consuming Mercury, probably Venus, and maybe even Earth. But even if the outer planets avoid being swallowed up, they might eventually get pulled in or ejected from the Solar System. A new discovery suggests they can survive intact. Using NASA’s JWST space telescope, astronomers have for the first time directly imaged planets on Solar System–like orbits around white dwarfs, the dead stars left after Sun-like stars swell into red giants and subside. The planets follow orbits resembling those of the giant planets in the outer Solar System—big enough for them to have escaped the inferno.... For GSS A Changing Cosmos chapter 1.
Read more

The Smallest Moon of Mars May Not Be What It Seemed

By -
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/25/science/mars-deimos-moon-photos.html By Jonathan O’Callaghan , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Deimos, the smaller of the two moons of Mars, might be a chip off the old block — quite literally. That’s the conclusion drawn by scientists in the United Arab Emirates, whose Hope orbiter — also called the Emirates Mars Mission and the country’s first interplanetary spacecraft — just snapped the best views of Deimos ever taken by human spacecraft. ... Mars has two irregularly shaped moons , and neither is mighty. Phobos, the larger of the two, is about 17 miles in diameter at its widest, and orbits closer to the red planet at an altitude of about 3,700 miles. Deimos is just nine miles across on its longest side, and completes an orbit of Mars every 30 hours at an altitude of 15,000 miles. The moons’ small size and quirky dimensions led to suggestions that they may be asteroids captured by Mars long ago. Not so, say researchers analyzing data recorded by Hope,
Read more