Is Jupiter’s Evil Twin Hiding At The Edge of Our Solar System?
Posted by Ryan on November 29th, 2010
In 1999, Matese and colleague Daniel Whitmire suggested the sun has a hidden companion that boots icy bodies from the Oort Cloud, a spherical haze of comets at the solar system’s fringes, into the inner solar system where we can see them.
In a new analysis of observations dating back to 1898, Matese and Whitmire confirm their original idea: About 20 percent of the comets visible from Earth were sent by a dark, distant planet.
An object such as a brown dwarf would knock out more than 20 percent, but “Something smaller than Jovian mass wouldn’t be strong enough to do the deed,” Matese said.
[Wired]
November 30th, 2010 at 4:22 am
They can’t even label the inner solar system correctly so we are supposed to believe a Jovian size planet is hiding way out there?