The God-Did-It Theory (was ... 10th Planet)

So Tom, am I right in associating 2003 EL61 (52 AU) with Planet T, and 2003 UB313 (97 AU) with Planet X?

--Astro

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Astrodelugeologist</i>
<br />So Tom, am I right in associating 2003 EL61 (52 AU) with Planet T, and 2003 UB313 (97 AU) with Planet X?<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Yes, probably. And because of their size, they are probably former moons, not just fragments.

Of course, the associations can't be confirmed with confidence until we know the orbital eccentricities too. That will probably take another year or two of observing because the real planet motion is so slow. The motion that led to discovery was almost all parallax. -|Tom|-

Tom,

NASA'a Alan Stern is quoted as predicting that there ought to be about a thousand Pluto sized or larger planets out there. Beyond Neptune. Some as large as Mars or Earth.

Do you know the basis for his prediction?

I believe the EPH would predict no more than a dozen or two, since large bodies like this would have originally been the large moons of 2 or perhaps 3 former planets that have exploded. ???

LB

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Larry Burford</i>
<br />NASA'a Alan Stern is quoted as predicting that there ought to be about a thousand Pluto sized or larger planets out there. Beyond Neptune. Some as large as Mars or Earth. Do you know the basis for his prediction?<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">As I recall, he infers that many are needed to produce enough close approaches and collisions to create the existing degree of scatter (high inclinations and eccentricities) in the TNOs. Moreover, he is thinking thay also have to be the dynamical source of Jupiter-family comets, and even of Oort cloud comets long ago.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">I believe the EPH would predict no more than a dozen or two, since large bodies like this would have originally been the large moons of 2 or perhaps 3 former planets that have exploded. ???<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">I agree. But everyone is assuming that 2003 UB313 is on a high-eccentricity orbit that brings it close to Neptune. Wouldn't it be interesting if fission theory was incomplete, and large, amorphous proto-stars spun off lots of mini-planets when the forming star was still 100 or more AU in radius? That would totally confound conventional models, just as the discovery of Sedna did. -|Tom|-

[tvf] "Wouldn't it be interesting if fission theory was incomplete, and large, amorphous proto-stars spun off lots of mini-planets when the forming star was still 100 or more AU in radius?"

There is only so much nature can do with tidal forces to move a newly spun-off planet pair from the proto star at the core of a collapsing gas/dust cloud as it becomes a solar system. The idea that the proto star would go through several cycles of spin up/shed mass as it is shrinking seems almost necessary to me.

If a star with a radius similar to Sol's present radius were to be fed mass till it reached over spin and shed some mass, that mass would initially orbit quite close (within one or two radii ?) to Sol's surface. How far could tidal forces move such a mass?

It makes more sense that as the planets spin off they stay fairly close to their original distance from the center of the collapsing mass. The central mass then continues to shrink, spins up again and throws off another blob or two, and so on.

Has anyone done simulations on this to explore the limits of what is possible? Would the dynamics of a 1000 or 2000 AU proto star be similar to the dynamics of a 50 or 100 AU proto star? (Would a large object like this still only throw off two masses?) Or would the proto star have to go below 50 AU to begin acting like your animation?

LB

Tom,

Would it be possible for brown dwarfs to form by fission from a protostar, as planets do?

--Astro