Planet X?

On this and all matters celestial, we should be guided by the B-52's:

On Planet X
Oooh, it won't be long now
I got a light-year to get to the phone now
I'm gonna contact you
When I get home
(I ain't foolin, gimme a refuelin'!)
-- 'Whammy Kiss'

Once again, I'm absolutely no help. But any excuse to invoke Kate Pearson.

Bravo said:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25244693/

i admit i've always been fascinated by this ever since 4th grade, when i corrected my older sister who believed there are 9 planets in the solar system.

"actually, there's a 10th!"

she didnt believe me and even mocked me about this.

well it turns out that as usual, i was right.

Click to expand...

Well, not quite yet. But the discovery of Eris, an icy world slightly larger than Pluto and beyond Pluto's orbit, at least puts it in the same category as Pluto. The rest is at present still unconfirmed, but intriguing, conjecture. We are rapidly discovering evidence of the existence of extrasolar planets (some 300 now confirmed), and I have no doubt we will find more big orbital objects much farther from the sun than we ever previously imagined.

caw

There was a time when "Planet X" was doubly kewl, because the "X" could mean the "tenth" planet or the "X" could mean "Unknown"

But then they stripped Pluto of its planet status, and all the kewlness is lost ...

Except that there is a saucer buried in the glacial ice of Pluto, and in the crashed saucer is a CD player, and in the CD player there is a cool CD.

Track 10 is amazing. And by some spooky weird coincidence, that tenth track is titled "X"

But it's like the X in Xmas ... and for some that puts it outside their boundaries of Coolness vs Religion.

But it's got a Rasta beat, so screw 'em, it's cool.

Bravo said:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25244693/

i admit i've always been fascinated by this ever since 4th grade, when i corrected my older sister who believed there are 9 planets in the solar system.

"actually, there's a 10th!"

she didnt believe me and even mocked me about this.

well it turns out that as usual, i was right.

and maybe the sumerians were too.

Click to expand...

Sorry, even if they find it, you're still both wrong. -

"If the new world is confirmed, it would not be technically a planet. Under a controversial new definition adopted by the International Astronomical Union last week, it would instead be the largest known "plutoid.""

Saw this thread and just had to chime in. Trust me as a former resident of the icy world you refer to, the weather here is much nicer. However, if it weren't for the subteranean vents, Planet X would be uninhabitable. Also, don't think their is only a tenth world in the darkness beyond Pluto. Planets Y and Z are as equally lovely!

Bravo said:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25244693/

i admit i've always been fascinated by this ever since 4th grade, when i corrected my older sister who believed there are 9 planets in the solar system.

"actually, there's a 10th!"

she didnt believe me and even mocked me about this.

well it turns out that as usual, i was right.

and maybe the sumerians were too.

Click to expand...

I recal lots of speculation about extra unknown-as-yet planets in-and-around the Solar System, some up to Jupiter-sized, or even near-star-sized. Such a planet would supposedly explain the occasional comet that comes further into the Solar System, as its movement would disturb the orbits of comets out there in the Kuiper Belt and/or Oort Belt, causing some to come on in toward the Sun.

I seem to recall there were several names for such a planet(s), but the only one I can recall is Nemesis, which Isaac Asimov used as the title of a novel:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis_(Isaac_Asimov_novel)

small axe said:

There was a time when "Planet X" was doubly kewl, because the "X" could mean the "tenth" planet or the "X" could mean "Unknown"

But then they stripped Pluto of its planet status, and all the kewlness is lost ...

Except that there is a saucer buried in the glacial ice of Pluto, and in the crashed saucer is a CD player, and in the CD player there is a cool CD.

Track 10 is amazing. And by some spooky weird coincidence, that tenth track is titled "X"

But it's like the X in Xmas ... and for some that puts it outside their boundaries of Coolness vs Religion.

But it's got a Rasta beat, so screw 'em, it's cool.

Click to expand...

Okay, this gives me a real SF/Religion idea going, perhaps something for the Sandbox: Xmas is short for Christmas...

Aside: I recall a Christmas party for my (Baptist church) Sunday School class when I was about age 10 (late 1960's), and one of the guys putting it on gave a talk/rant about how Christ in Christmas was being replaced with the letter x used as an abbreviation as in Xmas, and he wasn't happy about this, along with the commercialization of Christmas, bla bla bla... (but, oh, the Sears Wish Book! Wait, I'm digressing) Anyway, later in life I learned that the x in xmas stood for the cross of Christ (partly turned over on its side), and xmas has been used as a legitimate abbreviation for Christmas for almost as long as the word Christmas has been around.

So, back to the idea: Going back to Christ's time, He gets crucified, arises three days later, then 40 days after that He ascends into Heaven.

But just where in Heaven does He go? Planet X, of course!

Didn't they name the planet Sedna, and determine that it actually orbits two stars?

Do we have any good pictures?

How would a planet orbit two stars?

And Sedna is not that possible planet, which would be *much* farther, something like 20,000 AU away (1 AU = radius of the Earth's orbit), and *much* more massive, perhaps several times Jupiter's mass. This conclusion is from studying the behavior of long-period comets, whose orbits can get perturbed enough by that possible planet to send some of them into the inner Solar System.

Sedna is not quite that far away (perihelion about 75 AU, aphelion about 1000 AU), and not quite as massive (10[sup]-4[/sup] to 10[sup]-3[/sup] Earth masses).

There is also the fictional world of Gor, created by hack writer John Norman (which sure sounds like a pseudonym). Gor is a very Earthlike planet in the same orbit as Earth, but EXACTLY (and conveniently) on the opposite side of the sun from us, and therefore invisible to us.

Gor is populated by humans in a number of medieval-type city-states. The humans were captured on Earth and transported to Gor by the big bugs that are worshipped as the gods of that planet. Why bugs need to be worshipped is beyond me, but I'm neither a psychologist nor an entomologist.

Anyway...just thought I'd share. I think it's likely that we may discover another tiny planet far beyond Pluto. Maybe out in the Oort Cloud.

Re

Objects that are influenced by the sun's pull go so far out there's no telling how many planets we have. Remember, there's at least 4 light years between us and our closest neighboring star. Between here and there, there's no telling what you'll find, how many planets, comets, asteroids, asteroid and comet belts.