Science Megathread

[anvi]

Neptune has a new moon

     That reminds me, there are many dim objects in space that astronomers have yet to seriously examine. Many of the closest stars to us (Proxima Centauri, Barnard's Star, Wolf 359) are much too dim to be seen with the naked eye. The possibility for new objects of interest in our immediate vicinity is an ever present one.

And, speaking of that, this was on my FB news feed this morning.  Two guys at the U. of Louisiana Lafayette are hypothesizing that there is a planet in the Ort Cloud four times the size of Jupiter.  If that is the case, the story below says, it may have been a planet (or "dark clunker" star?) that escaped a nearby star system and was captured by ours.  It seems one major hitch in the hypothesis is that, if something that size was in the Ort Cloud, it would have major effects on commit paths through there, but that hasn't been observed.  The astrophysicists defending the theory will release their paper next year, so it should be interesting.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/14/tyche-hidden-planet_n_823028.html

[anvi]

The evidence against it seems stronger than the evidence for it....but I'm no astrophysicist.

I agree and am skeptical for the moment.  But, on the other hand, while the theory seems to mathematically account for some commit trajectories entering the viewable solar system, I don't know what kind of observational data about commits could be gleaned from the Ort cloud.  So, it will be interesting to see what critiques or appraisals the paper draws once its published.