New Planet?

Interesting news. The man (Mike Brown) who through discovering Eris and other similar bodies which ended up with Pluto being declassified, may have found a new planet in the depths of the solar system. Article is below.

www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/01/feature-...-unseen-solar-system

Thank you, Neill, for this exciting news.
But it is important to note that the planet as yet has not been found. It will probably take an extremely large telescope to find the new planet. Some over eager folk might be considering to hype the object up already.
Very interesting though, Neill. Please do keep us up to date!

Aubrey.

Sounds like a job for Dave Grennan.

If you are on twitter, could be very interesting to follow Mike Brown for the next while - @plutokiller .

well, it does look like compelling evidence, but the long standing point against a big planet X is that it should have been captured by the more recent infra-red surveys, who knows...
I think the scramble has now begun to find it.

It looks like there could be two planets. A 9th planet and a planet X. This recent model (Feb 2016) for the 9th planet indicates a close body in the inner Oort cloud and the other (Planet X) in the outer Oort Cloud. See previous posting on IFAS boards in 2015 on same topic. A lot of discussions regarding the evidence.

Assuming the planet is mainly emitting in the infrared, their have been infrared searches using the WISE telescope (Wide Infrared Survey Explorer).
Searches were conducted using WISE, but nothing found based at those distances on the criteria in this recent paper. The February paper proposes a gaseous planet. This should have showed up in the recent WISE survey at 22 microns. May be its rocky body with dim albedo. This would require a large optical to telescope get down to 28+ magnitude

Regarding Planet X. Among the WISE bands, W2 provides the best constraints on the presence of a companion to the Sun. Given the typical sensitivities achieved by WISE. W2 is capable of detecting objects at larger distances than W1, W3, and W4 for W1 − W2 > 1.2, W2 − W3 < 4.3, and W2 − W4 < 7.6, respectively. Although W1 offers higher S/N at W1 − W2 < 1.2, Any brown dwarf with that colour (T2) would be easily detected at W2 if it is within the range of plausible distances for a solar companion (<1 pc) based on the absolute magnitudes of L and T dwarfs.

This is a huge survey to analyse based on the above parameters. However, it could be filtered down to specific type Brown Dwarf (BD) that may have its own planets.

(We carried out recent data from W2 had 0.5 bn flux points with a FOV of 5 x 5 degrees resulted in 700 potential BDs). Applying WISE + ALLWISE + NEOWISE provides multiple epochs to potentially detect a shift

If a bound object is discovered by WISE, then it likely will explain the perceived Oort cloud comet anomaly and it will be a “Goldilocks” companion.

Any promising observation that is recorded in the WISE database would be sent to narrow-field IR telescopes for detailed follow up observations to falsify or verify the Goldilocks criteria. Time frame ~ 1 year.

Using the WISE telescope (Wide Infrared Survey Explorer), we have been using T7 BD type body as Planet X within the outer Solar System. We have been using WISE W2 band which should enhance candidates in that region.

We have analysed 25 sq. degs.up to August 2015 and are currently searching 75 sq. degs. in the Northern Hemisphere to the end of 2016

Using both WISE + ALLWISE + NEOWISE and comparison past catalogues 2MASS, SDSS and Spitzer. These will provide many epochs to see a reasonable shift of the proposed planet.

Eamonn