NASA has Released Info on Brown Dwarf Star/Dwarf Planet Between Jupiter and Mars

[igrowone]

Borrowed from wiki:


I guess we'll be ok for the next 21 million years or so...

probably right - probably
but if there is such an object, its periods of activity are unknown(at the moment)
i think the chances of imminent problems are remote - but if it can be identified and position located, it would be a good thing

 

[Crusader Rabbit]

The title is somewhat misleading. This object was discovered in the Oort Cloud which is in the far outer edges of our solar system. It isn't between Mars and Jupiter where some asteroids were also found.

 

[dagnabit]

i heard there is a blue dwarf orbited by a smaller gray dwarf between venus and mars.
anyone got any info on that one?

 

[FreedomFightr]

I was gonna say Nibiru too. Planet Nibiru home of the Anunnaki. I think Space exploration is good and all but why dont we master earth first before we go and screw shit up galacticly.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

anyone got any info on that one?

Haven't heard but isn't there a crab nebula on Uranus?

 

[krunchbubble]

also, this news from NASA will rewrite all science books and completely change our perception of space....

if this object has been just chilling there this whole time, while we thousands of telescopes scanning the sky every second of every day and many satellites that have passed by this object with no detection, WTF is still out there, that we have no clue about?!

 

[GoozMan]

I think I'm squeezing out a brown dwarf right now... But seriously, stars are just massive clumps of rock that get big enough to gravitationally collapse and start burning i.e. fusing hydrogen. Brown dwarf is the name given to clumps of rock that are not quite big enough to collapse. You'd think these are just as numerous if not more so than stars. Its crazy that there could be one in our solar system, though the Oort cloud is 50,000 AUs away from the Sun as compared with 1AU for Earth or 30AUs for Neptune... Sorry for the mini-lesson, I'm a public school teacher and we just got done talking astronomy!

 

[WasntMe]

I think I'm squeezing out a brown dwarf right now... But seriously, stars are just massive clumps of rock that get big enough to gravitationally collapse and start burning i.e. fusing hydrogen. Brown dwarf is the name given to clumps of rock that are not quite big enough to collapse. You'd think these are just as numerous if not more so than stars. Its crazy that there could be one in our solar system, though the Oort cloud is 50,000 AUs away from the Sun as compared with 1AU for Earth or 30AUs for Neptune... Sorry for the mini-lesson, I'm a public school teacher and we just got done talking astronomy!

WOW ... go public school education. :facepalm:

I really hope you are joking and this is not what you were teaching your students, cuz your "mini lesson" is completely wrong

Edit: Here is an educator's link to the Hayden Planetarium site were you can learn then teach what stars are actually made of, how Fusion in stars is started and even how even the heaviest element on the periodic table are formed inside stars and the occasional supernova. http://www.amnh.org/education/school_groups/exhibition.php?id=461

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

Sorry for the mini-lesson, I'm a public school teacher and we just got done talking astronomy!

(Wiki)
Structure and composition


The presumed distance of the Oort cloud compared to the rest of the Solar System


The Oort cloud is thought to occupy a vast space from somewhere between 2,000 and 5,000 AU (0.03 and 0.08 ly)[9] to as far as 50,000 AU (0.79 ly)[1] from the Sun. Some estimates place the outer edge at between 100,000 and 200,000 AU (1.58 and 3.16 ly).[9] The region can be subdivided into a spherical outer Oort cloud of 20,000–50,000 AU (0.32–0.79 ly), and a doughnut-shaped inner Oort cloud of 2,000–20,000 AU (0.03–0.32 ly). The outer cloud is only weakly bound to the Sun and supplies the long-period (and possibly Halley-type) comets to inside the orbit of Neptune.[1] The inner Oort cloud is also known as the Hills cloud, named after J. G. Hills, who proposed its existence in 1981.[10] Models predict that the inner cloud should have tens or hundreds of times as many cometary nuclei as the outer halo;[10][11][12] it is seen as a possible source of new comets to resupply the relatively tenuous outer cloud as the latter's numbers are gradually depleted. The Hills cloud explains the continued existence of the Oort cloud after billions of years.[13]
The outer Oort cloud is believed to contain several trillion individual objects larger than approximately 1 km (0.62 mi)[1] (with many billions with absolute magnitudes[14] brighter than 11—corresponding to approximately 20 km (12 mi) diameter), with neighboring objects typically tens of millions of kilometres apart.[3][15] Its total mass is not known with certainty, but, assuming that Halley's comet is a suitable prototype for all comets within the outer Oort cloud, the estimated combined mass is 3×10

25
​

kg (7×10

25
​

lb or roughly five times the mass of the Earth).[1][16] Earlier it was thought to be more massive (up to 380 Earth masses),[17] but improved knowledge of the size distribution of long-period comets has led to much lower estimates. The mass of the inner Oort Cloud is not currently known.
If analyses of comets are representative of the whole, the vast majority of Oort-cloud objects consist of various ices such as water, methane, ethane, carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide.[18] However, the discovery of the object 1996 PW, an asteroid in an orbit more typical of a long-period comet, suggests that the cloud may also be home to rocky objects.[19] Analysis of the carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios in both the Oort cloud and Jupiter-family comets shows little difference between the two, despite their vastly separate regions of origin. This suggests that both originated from the original protosolar cloud,[20] a conclusion also supported by studies of granular size in Oort cloud comets[21] and by the recent impact study of Jupiter-family comet Tempel 1.[22]

.

 

[sac beh]

this object - sometimes referred to as Nemesis - could be a mechanism for throwing comets into out solar system
which is no small deal - discovering such an object could lead to improved prediction of comet occurrence
which is dead on practical - as in a 'dead on' comet collision with our hangout

FTA:
In the 1980s, a different companion to the sun was hypothesized. That object, named for the Greek goddess "Nemesis," was proposed to explain periodic mass extinctions on the Earth. Nemesis would have followed a highly elliptical orbit, perturbing comets in the Oort Cloud roughly every 26 million years and sending a shower of comets toward the inner solar system. Some of these comets would have slammed into Earth, causing catastrophic results to life. Recent scientific analysis no longer supports the idea that extinctions on Earth happen at regular, repeating intervals. Thus, the Nemesis hypothesis is no longer needed. However, it is still possible that the sun could have a distant, unseen companion in a more circular orbit with a period of a few million years -- one that would not cause devastating effects to terrestrial life. To distinguish this object from the malevolent "Nemesis," astronomers chose the name of Nemesis's benevolent sister in Greek mythology, "Tyche."

So Nemesis isn't really an appropriate name for what NASA is talking about here.

 

[Weed-Luver]

Could it be...Nibiru..is the world really coming to end in 2012 as nibiru rotates around the sun throwing earth's gravitational pull of balance...

 

[igrowone]

FTA:
In the 1980s, a different companion to the sun was hypothesized. That object, named for the Greek goddess "Nemesis," was proposed to explain periodic mass extinctions on the Earth. Nemesis would have followed a highly elliptical orbit, perturbing comets in the Oort Cloud roughly every 26 million years and sending a shower of comets toward the inner solar system. Some of these comets would have slammed into Earth, causing catastrophic results to life. Recent scientific analysis no longer supports the idea that extinctions on Earth happen at regular, repeating intervals. Thus, the Nemesis hypothesis is no longer needed. However, it is still possible that the sun could have a distant, unseen companion in a more circular orbit with a period of a few million years -- one that would not cause devastating effects to terrestrial life. To distinguish this object from the malevolent "Nemesis," astronomers chose the name of Nemesis's benevolent sister in Greek mythology, "Tyche."

So Nemesis isn't really an appropriate name for what NASA is talking about here.

Nemesis was mentioned as being one of possible issues to be resolved by this project
there's all kind of theories on what's out in the Oort cloud, pretty wild stuff
one way to look it as an untapped resource, water delivery(and other choice molecules) on the big scale, great for space colonies

 

[TyChe]

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/news/wise20110218.html

this is an absolute trip!!! is it a dwarf star or a dwarf planet that has been existing in our planet system this entire time? March 2012 will be the whole revelation....


Background -
In November 2010, the scientific journal Icarus published a paper by astrophysicists John Matese and Daniel Whitmire, who proposed the existence of a binary companion to our sun, larger than Jupiter, in the long-hypothesized "Oort cloud" -- a faraway repository of small icy bodies at the edge of our solar system. The researchers use the name "Tyche" for the hypothetical planet. Their paper argues that evidence for the planet would have been recorded by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE).

WISE is a NASA mission, launched in December 2009, which scanned the entire celestial sky at four infrared wavelengths about 1.5 times. It captured more than 2.7 million images of objects in space, ranging from faraway galaxies to asteroids and comets relatively close to Earth. Recently, WISE completed an extended mission, allowing it to finish a complete scan of the asteroid belt, and two complete scans of the more distant universe, in two infrared bands. So far, the mission's discoveries of previously unknown objects include an ultra-cold star or brown dwarf, 20 comets, 134 near-Earth objects (NEOs), and more than 33,000 asteroids in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Following its successful survey, WISE was put into hibernation in February 2011. Analysis of WISE data continues. A preliminary public release of the first 14 weeks of data is planned for April 2011, and the final release of the full survey is planned for March 2012.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: When could data from WISE confirm or rule out the existence of the hypothesized planet Tyche?

A: It is too early to know whether WISE data confirms or rules out a large object in the Oort cloud. Analysis over the next couple of years will be needed to determine if WISE has actually detected such a world or not. The first 14 weeks of data, being released in April 2011, are unlikely to be sufficient. The full survey, scheduled for release in March 2012, should provide greater insight. Once the WISE data are fully processed, released and analyzed, the Tyche hypothesis that Matese and Whitmire propose will be tested.

Q: Is it a certainty that WISE would have observed such a planet if it exists?

A: It is likely but not a foregone conclusion that WISE could confirm whether or not Tyche exists. Since WISE surveyed the whole sky once, then covered the entire sky again in two of its infrared bands six months later, WISE would see a change in the apparent position of a large planet body in the Oort cloud over the six-month period. The two bands used in the second sky coverage were designed to identify very small, cold stars (or brown dwarfs) -- which are much like planets larger than Jupiter, as Tyche is hypothesized to be.

Q: If Tyche does exist, why would it have taken so long to find another planet in our solar system?

A: Tyche would be too cold and faint for a visible light telescope to identify. Sensitive infrared telescopes could pick up the glow from such an object, if they looked in the right direction. WISE is a sensitive infrared telescope that looks in all directions.

Q: Why is the hypothesized object dubbed "Tyche," and why choose a Greek name when the names of other planets derive from Roman mythology?

A: In the 1980s, a different companion to the sun was hypothesized. That object, named for the Greek goddess "Nemesis," was proposed to explain periodic mass extinctions on the Earth. Nemesis would have followed a highly elliptical orbit, perturbing comets in the Oort Cloud roughly every 26 million years and sending a shower of comets toward the inner solar system. Some of these comets would have slammed into Earth, causing catastrophic results to life. Recent scientific analysis no longer supports the idea that extinctions on Earth happen at regular, repeating intervals. Thus, the Nemesis hypothesis is no longer needed. However, it is still possible that the sun could have a distant, unseen companion in a more circular orbit with a period of a few million years -- one that would not cause devastating effects to terrestrial life. To distinguish this object from the malevolent "Nemesis," astronomers chose the name of Nemesis's benevolent sister in Greek mythology, "Tyche."

JPL manages and operates the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The principal investigator, Edward Wright, is at UCLA. The mission was competitively selected under NASA's Explorers Program managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The science instrument was built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory, Logan, Utah, and the spacecraft was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. Science operations and data processing take place at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. More information is online at http://www.nasa.gov/wise, http://wise.astro.ucla.edu and http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/wise .


Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov

Wow I have been going by this name for years!!!! Im cool now...

 

[GoozMan]

WOW ... go public school education. :facepalm:

I really hope you are joking and this is not what you were teaching your students, cuz your "mini lesson" is completely wrong

Edit: Here is an educator's link to the Hayden Planetarium site were you can learn then teach what stars are actually made of, how Fusion in stars is started and even how even the heaviest element on the periodic table are formed inside stars and the occasional supernova. http://www.amnh.org/education/school_groups/exhibition.php?id=461

Thank you for that. Btw educator links are what non-educators think happen in a classroom.

 

[MadBuddhaAbuser]

"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to krunchbubble again"

cool and interesting thread. thanks.

 

[WasntMe]

Thank you for that. Btw educator links are what non-educators think happen in a classroom.

I didn't link this to you because I thought that what was happening in your classroom, obvious by your fully inaccurate "mini-lesson" ...

I did so for 3 reasons. 1. Because it is a free resource for you to download and print real and accurate info for free, for both yourself and your students. Finding truly quality resources in a public school budget can be next to impossible at times. 2. Public schools can (and should) provide an excellent educational opportunity when accurate information and creative tools/teachers are provided. 3. The Hayden Planetarium has provided many valuable educational tools to a couple of the educators in my family and they have been tremendous hits with their students over the years. They are a educational resource supplier that is very passionate about trying to provide for and supplement a higher level of education .... something that I believe all kids, people and society in general deserve.

P.S. the world is not flat, Columbus was not Italian and life is not exclusively carbon based. PM me if your classroom needs more help in the science dept.

dumb dumb want gum gum? (also located in the AMNH)

 

[WasntMe]

I'll be going to a lecture by Michio Kaku early next month. I can't wait to hear his view points on this potential binary dwarf.

 

[GoozMan]

I'll be going to a lecture by Michio Kaku early next month. I can't wait to hear his view points on this potential binary dwarf.

You know you kind of remind me of a particular type of student I have every year. Did you ever go to school in San Diego?

 

[Dojo]

I'll be going to a lecture by Michio Kaku early next month. I can't wait to hear his view points on this potential binary dwarf.

I cant wait till hes president so we can start up this space colonization shit

 

[Space Toker]

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/news/wise20110218.html

this is an absolute trip!!! is it a dwarf star or a dwarf planet that has been existing in our planet system this entire time? March 2012 will be the whole revelation....


Background -
In November 2010, the scientific journal Icarus published a paper by astrophysicists John Matese and Daniel Whitmire, who proposed the existence of a binary companion to our sun, larger than Jupiter, in the long-hypothesized "Oort cloud" -- a faraway repository of small icy bodies at the edge of our solar system. The researchers use the name "Tyche" for the hypothetical planet. Their paper argues that evidence for the planet would have been recorded by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE).

Whitney Clavin 818-354-4673
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
whitney.clavin@jpl.nasa.gov

yeah dude it would be cool. I am afraid I have to correct your title though. The asteroid belt is between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars, the proposed brown dwarf or giant planet up to 3 Jupiter masses would be in the Oort cloud, which is considerably further. The distance between Earth and the sun is called an Astronomical Unit, or AU. Mars is like 1.5 AU from the sun, Jupiter is 5, and the Oort cloud could extend many tens of thousands of AU's out and begins somewhere well beyond the orbit of Pluto (it begins hundreds of AU's out). It would be cool, the odds are not good but I hope it does exist! Great thread though man!