Astrophysicists at the University of Louisiana said today
they are close to proving the existence of an enormous gas planet on the far outer edges of the solar system. The long-pondered tenth planet (if you still count Pluto) could be four times larger than Jupiter and its existence would explain the behavior of nearby comets.
The potential new planet has been nicknamed Tyche after the Greek goddess believed to have influenced the fortune of cities. Matese and Whitmire published a paper about it in the journal Icarus in November, predicting the planet's location orbiting the innermost region of the outer Oort cloud, a spherical shell of cometary bodies believed to surround the sun far beyond the orbit of Pluto. The paper suggested evidence of the new planet would have been recorded by NASA's Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) telescope, launched in 2009, which is releasing its first batch of data in April. The researchers told The Independent this week that they believe the data could reveal the new planet within two years.
According to Wikipedia, ancient Greeks blamed Tyche for natural disasters such as floods and droughts. We
totally need to launch a gay rights group with that name.
Labels: astronomy, science
Astrophysicists at the University of Louisiana said today they are close to proving the existence of an enormous gas planet on the far outer edges of the solar system. The long-pondered tenth planet (if you still count Pluto) could be four times larger than Jupiter and its existence would explain the behavior of nearby comets. 
