Somewhere out in the middle of the “Oort” Cloud out towards the inner solar system lies several if not hundreds of asteroids, they just “kind of” sit there motionless, and now a computer model suggested that a giant planet many times bigger than Jupiter that we have never seen before is launching them towards the Sun, and then they go back to the Oort cloud until they are launched again. Unfortunately, we are in between the comet’s path. Beautiful scene, until we get hit.
The American Astronomical Society had a meeting earlier this year in Boston, a research team from NASA went up to the meeting from their Ames Research Center and presented the new data as a way to explain why comets come into our solar system in an elliptical pattern. Their conclusion, a large planet sized object orbiting out int he middle of the Oort cloud about one quarter of a light year in distance. This massive object has a mass many times bigger than Jupiter, and is classified as a Brown Dwarf.
The reason we have not seen the planet yet, is because brown dwarf planets are gas giants, yet, they are not large enough to light up like stars. The only thing they are good for is launching things around thanks to their intense gravity that cause internal fusion. This type of internal fusion only happens when a planet is 10 times the size of Jupiter, and right now they are trying to understand more about the planet before they make a news story that is 100% accurate. For all we know, the planet might not even exist at all, it’s just a speculation and a theory that has enough data to make it “plausible”
Nasa has a Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer telescope that they launched in 2009, they are trying to use the telescope to figure out if there is anything out there. Here is an Idea, why not add a satellite to the next Comet that comes swooshing by? stick that bad boy underneath the comet’s belly and attach some cameras to it, see where it goes. They would need to add some “heating” pads to the satellite but it’s worth it.
