andy lloyd

An astronomical Conumdrum about the Outer Solar System: For some time astronomers have been finding new minor planets beyond Pluto, in the Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt. Many of these objects have exhibited unusual properties, and anomalous orbital patterns. I favour the presence of a very massive planet lurking in the darkness beyond Pluto to explain this growing list of anomalies. Now, quite a few of the astronomers who actually hunt for these objects have noticed the pattern I’ve been arguing for. And they have hesitantly suggested something massive might be the cause of the strange behaviour of the newly-discovered minor planets. But, knowing how crazy that sounds to normal folk, they have quickly added that such an object cannot be there anymore, so must have been a companion at the time of the Sun’s birth that was subsequently lost. In other words, they have suggested that a long-gone Dark Star companion once existed which set the minor planets into their crazy little dances which we are now observing. I’ve continued to argue that the companion is still present, waiting to be discovered. And now a piece of evidence has emerged which suggests this very possibility. One of the minor planets, dubbed ‘Xena’, is about the same size as Pluto. It was recently imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope. Oddly, it has a very, very bright and reflective surface. For an object which always remains more distant than Pluto, this is highly irregular, and it has the astronomers baffled. Over time it should have become dusty and grey, rather than icy and white. For some reason, its surface is being replenished over time. Yet it is too distant to undergo cometary activity, and too small to generate enough internal heat to boil out liquid from inside itself. The properties of Xena are just like a small moon orbiting around a massive gas giant. Yet Xena is on its own, in the cold expanse of the space beyond Pluto. So the image taken by the Hubble Space Telescope makes no sense. Unless, that is, you allow for the presence of a massive object out there which Xena periodically encounters. Under those circumstances, the nature of its surface features becomes readily explainable: As Xena approaches what would have to be a Dark Star, it begins to act like a comet, boiling up inside and shedding water and other volatiles onto its surface and out into space. This would then account for its current bright appearance. The reason why this moves us forward is that this process must be current and on-going. A long-gone Dark Star could not account for the current high reflectivity of Xena’s surface. One should still be out there. The following link has explanatory graphics to help develop this argument: http://www.darkstar1.co.uk/xena.html The real question is: Where is it? It's effect is measurable. Its presence has yet to be determined directly.

That's an interesting thought. I guess, and maybe I'm wrong here, that the reason that the (Edgeworth-)Kuiper Belt was theorised as being a disc in the first place was that the short range comets tended to lie somewhat in the plane of the ecliptic. Conversely, the more or less random sources of long range comets created the concept of a more distant Oort Cloud. Theoretically, the Kuiper Belt was an intrinsic part of the original proto-planetary disk of the solar system, and so this would underline the probability that most of its objects lie in the same plane today, or have been perturbed into more eccentric orbits by, say, Neptune's influence. Like Pluto. Whereas the Oort Cloud's character was affected by external influences, like the galactic tide, passing stars, and so on, which randomised the cloud over time. If these premises are correct, then that explains the difficulties with the current discoveries to present theory, not least Buffy. If you are correct in your prediction, the textbooks would still need to be re-written. This article from 'USA Today' highlights the strangely anomalous condition of the outer solar system: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2005-12-19-strange-solar-system_x.htm?POE=click-refer The implication of these new discoveries (particularly regarding the bodies named Sedna and Buffy) is that science has some work to do. I would advocate the existence of a dark companion to explain the anomalous behaviour of these objects.

A new Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt object has caused astronomers a headache. This scattered disk object seems too distant to have a purely resonant orbit with Neptune, but theories used to explain its high angular tilt with respect to the ecliptic run into trouble. This is because its orbit is almost circular, and the available theoretical mechanisms would require its orbit to have become more eccentric. This is anomalous and has led to speculation by Hal Levison that another factor may be at play...perhaps the one-time presence of a binary object orbiting the Sun. http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8455 Just what exactly is going on out there???