AperioContra said:
TitanDrone said:
I find it odd that people need to make up ghost planets to drum up a bit of sensationalist speculation when there are real observable objects posing a danger. I guess the nut cases don't like uncertainty in their doomsday scenarios. Maybe that is why they need a bigger, and more sinister image of doom. A planet or a gas giant or even the ghostly remains of our own suns undead, somewhat gaseous twin.
To be the devil's advocate. NASA is still out on this idea. So, this is a manner of debate even in the scientific community. The existence, or nonexistence of Tyche (As the case may be) is still being observed by WISE. I would agree with you, it is far more likely that it is nothing but an odd discrepancy, or signs of orbit in the oort cloud being slightly more funny than we expected.
But, um, the fact that I hypothesized "Galactus, Devourer of Worlds" should have tipped you off I take the sensationalism of there being a new planet about as wholeheartedly as you. You know? Galactus?
There is no debate in the scientific community that even comes close. Any object heavy and close enough will influence the orbits of nearby objects. We would be able to observe and measure changes in orbits much more extreme than those (by comparison) small, seemingly chaotic motions of objects in the ort cloud.
I do understand that you had a humorous agenda and it is entirely possible for a rogue object to "come out of nowhere" and devour our solar system without any prior warning. Imagine a small black hole with a mass a few times that of our sun. This invisible monster could be hurtling through space directly towards us. Depending on the relative speed of the object, we would not get any prior warning. We would not be able to observe it or its gravitational effects until hours or minutes before it swallowed us. That would be a Galactus type event. I do caution people who get their knowledge of orbital mechanics from rather speculative youtube videos titled "DOOM! DOOOM! WE ARE ALL DOOOOOOMED!"
Of the scientists supposedly "looking at this" most are in fact investigating other phenomena. Their theoretical work is being interpreted and re-represented as facts in some of these doomsday-scenario-videos. True, some are in fact looking for objects that can account for the missing mass in our and other galaxies. Some hunt for Dark Matter, not as an exotic particle or wave, but as actual matter. Dust or gas left cold and therefore invisible.
I suspect the "world is ending" craze is directly linked to a series of shows the History Channel did around 2007 ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1051155/ ) As a European viewer I have had access to a wide variety of this type of media. I can honestly say that "The Universe" is like the Popular Kids version of a documentary series about space. A lot of it is "presenting science as a show," and that is what The History channel is in the business for. The first season was pretty solid. Earth, Moon, Sun, Planets, Comets, and so on. By the third season things got strange and veered of course.
My point is, that a lot of the speculative pseudo-science is getting presented as solid science ad a lot of ideas that have yet to be prooved are getting air-time as "exiting new science."
A good example of this, is the recent "particle-travels-faster-than-light"-articles infecting the worlds newspapers. I am not 100% solid on this, so bear with me as I try to explain.
A Team of scientists working out of Cern stumbled across some strange numbers in their experiment (which had nothing to do with making an FTL drive.) They observed that a set of sub-atomic particles they created appeared to move faster than the accepted value for the speed of light as defined by science. Now this is of course very strange since, according to theoretical dogma, NOTHING can make ANYTHING move faster than the speed of light.
But. And this is where things get fishy. The speed of light is actually a result of a scientific compromise. The figure itself has changed a few times over the course of history. The reasons behind this are complicated but essentially boils down to a case of "we had to because we measured it to be faster." In other words, science got more precise and realized it had the wrong figure.
So The Cern team HAS to ask for guidance. They have no way of knowing what the hell they have observed. It does not make sense unless:
1. There was a mistake made in their experiment. In which case they could catch the error by having other teams repeat the experiment.
2. They observed some previously unknown effect. Again, they need the assistance of others to repeat and document the effect.
3. The speed of light needs to be revised by about 7000 kph because the previous figure turns out to be wrong. This would again require the assistance of other teams repeating the experiment.
So the scientific method of seeking help leads to a non-publication type plea for assistance, which then becomes a story about actual science (when it in fact wholly uncertain and in the "what the hell" stages of discovery.) The thirst for sensationalist and controversial discoveries lead to a misrepresentation of the actual story. The basic problem here is a complete lack of understanding among the general population. Shows like The Universe are kids shows in style but fail to present science as it is in reality - a lot of hard work by clever people (some would say unglamorous.)
Anyway. Back to my favorite ways to end the world. Looking at the data we do have, it is far more likely that our sphere of space-dust will be hit by other clumps of space-dust. We know of thousands of potential missiles and are constantly observing more. We also have hard evidence that our earth has been hit in the past. Here's a youtube vid of a flyby of Meteor Crater in Arizona http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZi9COmgQD8 as an example. This type of disaster could range from a pretty light show to a world-changing event (depending on the size, site, angle, velocity and composition of the impactor.) More of a Bruce Willis in Armageddon type event. Naturally the object could hail from a distant world and contain the only survivor of a long-dead civilisation, but the last few Superman movies haven't exactly been that great.
