Dear fellow astronomers,

Irish astronomy is going from strength to strength lately. I am sure at this stage that the name Eamonn Ansbro is known to every member of this forum and indeed the far wider astronomy community, It therefore gives me great pleasure in announcing the following…

Amateur astronomer Eamonn Ansbro was awarded this month a research degree from the Planetary Space Science Research Institute at Open University, UK. This work provided a contribution to Solar System studies involving the use of the main 0.9m telescope at Kingsland Observatory, Kingsland, County Roscommon over a 10 year period. He previously had been awarded Master’s degree from an Australian University on studying two of the major planets in the Solar System.

Eamonn lives in a remote rural non light polluted part of County Roscommon. This is where he had to create his own laboratory before embarking on this recent research degree. This was a follow up on previous research requiring a better understanding of the formation of the Solar System and thereby to carry out a major survey of the outer Solar System.

He was aware that the big international government telescopes had teams searching the outer Solar System along the ecliptic region for faint enigmatic minor planets. However, because of the constraints of telescope time they were not able to survey at high ecliptic latitudes and especially from high latitudes from the Earth at 54 degrees north like in Ireland. Eamonn has had lots of people who have helped him, so he persisted and succeeded in carrying out a large scale survey at high ecliptic latitudes.

This required making the largest operational robotic telescope in the British Isles. This alone took 3 years to develop which then was used to survey the sky for 5 years and to successfully finding a number of enigmatic faint minor planets at high ecliptic latitudes. Part of another survey of another 4 years resulted in finding 43 suspect large planets outside the boundaries of the Solar System. This survey alone is still been carried out to the present time and there is every indication that there is a large planet there. This research alone, if successful, will mean that our Sun has a companion Brown Dwarf revolving around it.

Although the research has been challenging, it’s resulted in improving what we know at present about the formation of the Solar System. In July this year, the New Horizons space probe will be the first probe to reach Pluto and the Edgeworth Kuiper Belt and this may result with further understanding of the outer Solar System and its relationship with the early formation of the Solar System.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish Eamonn the very best in his future endeavours, well done Eamonn you are an inspiration to the wider Amateur Astronomy Community.

Mike

Eamonn - I am delighted for you.

The path has been long and hard but the reward so very much worth the effort. Your research topic is very interesting and I'll continue to look forward to results and more research.

What I find particularly incredible is that you used your own equipment (and money) to get to the final result. Many (most) researchers would simply not even consider this project if they knew there was no or little funding.

You have always been an inspiration for me and I'm sure others here in IFAS, in Ireland and further afield. So not only have you achieved this honour, you have helped a good few folks here along the path with you.

I hope you continue with the work but I also hope you will take a little time out to enjoy the honour and bask in it for a while...

Many congratulations from both myself and Fiona.

Dave

Eamonn this is truly exciting work, if any of these 43 suspects objects reveal themselves to be of great significance, you could go down in history And why not say it, you would deserve it !

Keith.

Congratulations on your achievement Eamonn. Your works sounds absolutely fascinating and I look forward to hearing more as it progresses. As Keith said, it sounds like it could make headlines in years to come.

Mike

Many congrats Eamonn on completing your PhD.
I know you've put many years of work into it so well done!
Michael.

Well done Eamonn on completing the PhD. Hope the awards ceremony went well and was a very enjoyable day.

I only got to browse about a quarter of the thesis at Galway but it is a stunning read giving a fascinating insight into the historic search for objects at the edge along with the work you have been doing. The sheer hard work and dedication has been justifiably rewarded and I wish you continued successful collaborations with your peers in the field of EKBO and inner Oort Cloud object detection and study.

John

Congratulations Eamonn on obtaining your PhD !

I always admire people who complete PhD's over a long time (part time say). It is harder to keep up the motivation and there are more distractions. Having been there myself many years ago but doing it full time, I could not imagine how hard it must be to spend so many years working on achieving this goal.

I always remember a presentation on the qualities people needed to complete successful PhD's. It only comes down to one quality. It's not how smart you are or how many hours you spend on it-sheer determination and bloody-mindedness to finish is the key trait.

Well done ! We can call you Dr Ansbro now

Many congratulations Eamonn!

Congratulations on this achievement. Thank you for showing me your observatory facilities recently and the research you carry out. You have an amazing set up, in particular the big telescope. The performance of that telescope images are incredible. I appreciate your dedication and the huge amount of time to carry out research in Ireland.

What surprised me is that you can rival professional astronomers at leading edge Solar System research. The difference is that you not only designed and built your own telescope but you used it to carry out a large scale survey in regions that others were not surveying, and then you mathematically modelled all your results. I understand that astronomers these days don’t even know how to use telescopes, never mind building one.

I am fascinated about the possibilities of finding a Planet X or Brown Dwarf in our Solar System. I understand that you have been working on this project for many years. I also understand from the last time talking to you that you are closing on the region where it might be. I would love to know more about this project as it unravels. What do you plan to do now after bringing this to a successful conclusion.

Your inspiration has influenced me to take up astrophotography. After doing a lot of terrestrial photography, I am hooked on astrophotography.

Joe

Thank you for all the kind words.
I am proud to be an amateur astronomer amongst peers. Amateur astronomy provides a lot of freedom when it comes to research topics. When I proposed this project to Open University, they thought it was highly ambitious to carry this survey out, never mind trying to find a large planet in our Solar System. The 3 supervisors came to my observatory in County Roscommon to verify that I had a telescope that could carry out this survey. I did test runs for them to prove that I could do the research.

In answer to some of your interest in the PlanetX or Brown Dwarf research I'll give a brief background.

The main part of the research was the wide scale survey that got down to 22nd magnitude. This survey was complete showing that there are more large bodies at high ecliptic latitudes.
The other research is still going on as regards finding a Planet X or Brown Dwarf at the edge of the Solar System.

This research identified a statistical clumping in the sky of comets with periods longer than one million years based on 100 comets. The research hypothesised this could have been caused by a large planet of a few Jupiter masses orbiting the Sun.

The search for the ‘Planet’ was carried out over four years using the 0.9m telescope at Kingsland Observatory to 22.7 Sloan i band magnitude when using deconvolution image processing. These observations were performed in September and April in order to detect any parallax of a distant object. Previous images were taken using the 1.2m Schmidt telescope at Siding Springs, Australia which identified 43 suspect planets. Kingsland went down to fainter magnitudes to verify or refute these previous targets. Other survey images in infrared have also been used to possibly identify a target planet. However, further research using other recent survey material is being carried out in the same area where the suspect planets were. One suspect planet has been identified with the right characteristics based on expanding some parameters.

There will be a scientific paper coming out this year which will show the results.

Eamonn

Hi Eamonn,
What is the expected size of this planet or Brown Dwarf? Any idea of the distance?

Mike

Hi Eamonn
What is the expected revolution of Planet X?
What colour? and could there be planets orbiting it?

Joe

Hi Mike and Joe,

First of all may I apologise for answering you until now. I've been outside the country for the last few weeks and only now trying to catch up on correspondence.

Thanks for your questions which are challenging and quite specific.

Regarding your specific questions:

Mike,

Size of the planet X or Brown Dwarf?
What distance is the Brown Dwarf?

Joe,

What revolution around the Sun?
What colour?
Are their planets orbiting it?

Before answering, I’ll give you both a background summation to the Planet X / Brown Dwarf research in our Solar System.

Until 2005 it had been postulated that there could be a Planet X in the Solar System which could be at any distance from 100 AU to 100,000 AU, dependent on the interpretation of the observations of potentially perturbed objects. A new planet location would depend on the dynamics within the Solar System including the Oort Cloud.

Researchers have hypothesised the existence of an undiscovered planet based on the following, regions of the outer Solar System where there has been clumping of a larger number of comets; specific analysis of some comet orbits; perturbations of the outer planets and /or a signature large mass body extracted from resonant architectural structure of the Edgeworth Kuiper Belt, but none had indicated specific location until now.

These theories allow upper and lower bounds to be put on the orbital radius of such a planet. Both 80 to 500 AU distances are so near that a planet should have been found with recent surveys that have covered both hemispheres. The selected upper bound was 100,000 AU while the lower bound was 10,000 AU. This suggests a radius to within one order of magnitude. If the lower bound were closer than 10,000 AU the gravitational effects would be more noticeable, and so planet X would have been discovered already. If the upper bound were further away than 100,000 AU the postulated gravitational effects on the comets would not have been measureable. In addition there are also galactic gravitational effects. It appears to be an object that is slightly closer to our Sun.

Many extra-solar planets have now been discovered with masses close to those estimated for a Planet X. However, I believe we are not dealing with a planet as we know it. It would be in the category of a planet which has an upper mass predicted a mass of 3 ± 2 -5MJup.

Based on the comet clumping model in the outer Solar System, and eliminating surveys at the only location based on this modelling, this rules out any large body at 10k AU to 40k AU. My survey didn’t show a planet at those distances.

There is some large body effecting those comets and also the EK belt. The most likely location is in the same general coordinates covering about 100 square degrees. Our planet X has now become a Brown Dwarf with a
the boundary of being a small Brown Dwarf. The defining differences between a very-low-mass Brown Dwarf and a giant planet (~13 MJ). The suspected object is somewhere between 3 and 10 times the mass of Jupiter. Its probably a Y dwarf. The four closest known systems now consist of two M Dwarfs and one member of every other spectral type from G through Y.

The coldest Brown Dwarfs are dim star like bodies that lack the mass to burn nuclear fuel as stars do. The outer colour appearance of the Brown Dwarf could be blue at these low temperatures of 250 K. This temperature is as cold as the North Pole (or between minus 48 to minus 13 degrees Celsius. The estimated distance based on this modelling is 92k AU.

It is common to have stars that have failed (being Brown Dwarfs), and are binary (twin stars) also being a common feature in our Galaxy. It is also common to have planets, based on Keplar exoplanet results. The average number of planets revoloving around planet producing stars is 5 to 6.

This proposed Brown Dwarf is very cool and with its possible orbiting planets, reduces the temperature and therefore its detectability in a specific Y range of the Brown Dwarf types.

In summary.
Size around 100k miles in diameter.
Distance: 92k AU
Revolution: 25 million years
Colour: Blue
Planets: 5 or 6

Although this gives you a quick answer. I do hope it gives you a flavour of what may be out there. This research is still in its infancy and controversial to other astronomers. Hey!, history in science has been plagued by controversial topics that turned out to be true in the end. Its funny, when you provide facts and evidence to other scientists they may not realise that the answer is staring them in the face.

Eamonn

Interesting

This is really interesting Eamonn, I agree that if it was a big planet in closer to the Sun it would have been found by now, I do agree that we could be dealing with an exotic object with one such explanation such as an extremely faint (maybe a V-mag of +30) a cool to very cool high mass brown dwarf (BD) even as you say with possible planets and perhaps dust, asteroids etc, I had to check that one up and indeed there has been BDs discovered with attending planet/s and also that all BDs are similar in size to Jupiter but their mass varies greatly, with an upper limit to around 80 Jupiter masses before nuclear fusion begins and thus it becomes a star.

I wonder therefore if this hypothetical BD was born from the same solar nebula or perhaps it was passing by our Sol system at one time in the solar systems past and became captured and settled into an eccentric orbit, perhaps as you say 90k AU but this could be a close approach and perhaps may reach an aphelion point of 130k AU.

I remember looking at the work from the Binary Research Institute; they were studying precession of the equinoxes that can be explained due to solar system motion through space, causing a reorientation of the earth relative to the fixed stars as the solar system gradually curves through space (the binary theory or model). In effect if you can imagine the Sun moving through space it will move in a cork-screw pattern if the Sun has a relatively high mass companion, this would also help explain the discrepancy in the distribution standard model, if you complete a log angular momentum to mass ratio graph there is missing mass to explain the current model, if you add in a relatively high mass Sol companion it starts to work out very nicely.
www.binaryresearchinstitute.org/

If I take a BD to be around 0.04 Sun mass and place it around 1.5 light years distant, this would give the centre of mass for our hypothetical Sol binary system ~4,000 AU from the Sun. In theory such a companion object should have relatively large parallax (perhaps 2.5 arcsec/yr) but small proper motion.

Sorry my mind is racing ahead, its mind boggling to think about it, one of the many reasons I love astronomy, the question is where exactly and how to look for this object?

Mike

Mike,

Regarding your question "where exactly and how to look for this object?" can be justified by the following:

1. We have a concentration of clumping of comets from the Oort comet cloud. This is due to a combination of perturbations and impulses from within our Galaxy. The object in question is likely to be a free floater and will be a "Goldilocks" companion. Studies have shown that very wide binary stars may form during the star cluster dissolution phase. (Kouwenhoven et al. 2010). A wide-binary solar companion also could have been captured in the Sun’s youth. A microlensing study (Sumi et al. 2011) suggests that a population of unbound or distant Jupiter mass objects may be more common than stars in our Galaxy. This explains the above scenario that is real and not an anomaly

2. Assuming a binary BD mass relationship with our Sun, as you outlined in your previous post, then one can calculate its location.

I listed characteristics previously, showing the best fit temperature, distance and the mass fit of this cold BD.

Based on the above there are two possible locations. The first calculated one covers 100 square degrees in the Northern hemisphere. (comet clumping model) The other is nearby covering a narrow region also calculated in the Northern hemisphere. ("Goldilocks" companion model)

The focus is to search at these two locations in specific IR bands that correlate with such a BD.

I hope that clarifies in principle the general strategy and locations.

Eamonn

Hi Eamonn
I was pondering the other day as regards the 43 ‘suspect planet’ objects that didn’t show signs of a planet. If these bodies didn’t show any signs where do you expect to find the planet?

Joe,

Apologies for the late reply.

Those original 43 suspect planets in a specific region of the sky were detected by the 0.9m telescope/CCD camera. (based in Roscommon) These images were in the visible unfiltered. However, the CCD camera spectral response is peaking at 700nm (red band). Post image processing got down to 22.6 magnitude at this band.

I am now working on using more recent catalogues that have surveyed the sky in the infrared in the same sky region. The planet (Brown Dwarf), if it is there in the data, should show up in a specific infrared band as a faint cool body. (see previous posts) Even if a signature is identified, it would be important to look back on infrared catalogue data from 10 to 15 years ago. This would be an advantage for parallax motion. If the calculated shift in motion is at the distance modelled then it is most likely the new planet.

In summary, I'm looking in the same region of sky for a very cool planet in the infrared. (see previous posts for more details)

Eamonn

P.S. I'm giving a presentation of the results at INAM 2015, QUB, Belfast, August 26-28.