Possible Companion in Oort Cloud

[renormalised (Carl)]

Missed this one, but anyway

Recent dynamic analysis of the orbits of comets from the Oort Cloud suggest that there is a companion object to the Sun of around 1-4 Jupiter masses orbiting between 10E4 AU (4Jm) to 30E4 AU(1Jm). The paper, submitted to Icarus, by Whitmire and Matese, states the following abstract...

We present an updated dynamical and statistical analysis of outer Oort cloud cometary evidence suggesting the sun has a wide-binary Jovian mass companion. The results support a conjecture that there exists a companion of mass ~ 1-4 M_Jup orbiting in the innermost region of the outer Oort cloud. Our most restrictive prediction is that the orientation angles of the orbit normal in galactic coordinates are centered on the galactic longitude of the ascending node Omega = 319 degree and the galactic inclination i = 103 degree (or the opposite direction) with an uncertainty in the normal direction subtending ~ 2% of the sky. A Bayesian statistical analysis suggests that the probability of the companion hypothesis is comparable to or greater than the probability of the null hypothesis of a statistical fluke. Such a companion could also have produced the detached Kuiper Belt object Sedna. The putative companion could be easily detected by the recently launched Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE).

The object, if it exists, will be at a high orbital inclination to both the galactic plane (103 degrees) and the ecliptic plane (135 degrees). That being the case it'll appear to be orbiting retrograde to orbits of the planets.

They did find one possible object from the IRAS PSC catalogue, 07144+5206, but the FSC (Faint Source Catalogue) associated it with a different source about 80arcsec away. So, they're not sure on this detection. However, further searching may find the object. It should be easily seen as its predicted temp is around 200K, which any of the IR satellites should find.

Attached to this thread is a figure from their paper, outlining the orbital elements of the object, integrated over the 4.6Ga lifetime of the Solar System.

[rally]

Carl.

Of all people - You're not suggesting they found P-X are you ?

Links please, since its not April !

Rally

[renormalised (Carl)]

No....this is far from Planet X

N.B. For anyone reading this that has ideas of Nibiru etc....forget it. You're about as far away from that fantasy with this as you can get.

There's a link to the paper....click on it.

[higginsdj]

A little unusual for a paper submitted to Icarus to be pre published on a public site like aiXiv, particularly when almost anything can be published on aiXiv by almost anyone!

The author seems to have a bee in his bonnet on this topic. He has previous papers on the subject from 2006 and 2005, 2004, 2002, 1999......

[renormalised (Carl)]

A lot of papers are being done that way these days. But you just can't post anything there. They're a bit more restrictive than that...what's posted has to be peer reviewed

[renormalised (Carl)]

The author seems to have a bee in his bonnet on this topic. He has previous papers on the subject from 2006 and 2005, 2004, 2002, 1999......

That he might have...but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. Unless he is pushing an agenda, but to find out you'd have to get a feel for his papers and his career, in general.

[CraigS]

The Oort cloud is hypothetical, right ?

[renormalised (Carl)]

Originally Posted by CraigS

The Oort cloud is hypothetical, right ?

Yes and no....Yes, in that it hasn't been detected as an actual object and no in that the comets with parabolic orbits have aphelion points out as far as the cloud and/or originated from there. Comets like West, McNaught, Hale-Bopp, Lulin, Ikeya-Seki etc, most likely originated from the region where the Oort Cloud is supposed to be. They have enormous orbits...some probably go out as far as 50000 AU or more. Others have been ejected from the Solar System altogether. The Oort Cloud is basically all the crud that was floating about in the Solar System when it first formed, that was ejected as the giant planets assumed their present orbits.

[renormalised (Carl)]

And before I forget....they've also seen similar structures around others stars....disks and spherical clouds of materials shining dimly in the IR bands. IR excesses, especially around some of the brighter stars such as Vega, Fomalhaut etc, that shouldn't be too bright in the IR. Much of it is dust, but where there's dust there's also more substantial materials.

[higginsdj]

Originally Posted by renormalised

That he might have...but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. Unless he is pushing an agenda, but to find out you'd have to get a feel for his papers and his career, in general.

Agreed, it just feels like an agenda given that it doesn't appear to be 'new' nor does it appear to have gained any wide acceptance as yet.

Any one feel like doing the math on how bright an object like this might be?