Large New World Discovered Beyond Neptune

Ptarmigan · 07-29-2005, 18:28

It appears tenth planet has been discovered. It could be Planet X. They always talk of a tenth planet. I am pretty sure it is out there. It would be faint because of its distance. Pluto is around magnitude 13.8 to 15, coming from an amateur astronomer.

Large New World Discovered Beyond Neptune

ChrisReid · 07-30-2005, 00:28

http://www.space.com/scienceastronom...ew_planet.html is a better article.

I'm not sure how "they" always "talking about it" makes you sure "it's out there." More planets could easily exist, but Planet X cropping up in science fiction and random internet hypothesis doesn't make me believe more planets exist. The problem with new planets in our system at this point is that if we haven't discovered them yet, there's a good chance they're even crazier duds than Pluto. The new object is pretty damn far out and on a weird plane. There's going to be a big movement calling it just another Kuiper Belt object, like all the other tenth planet claims that have come up recently.

Indoril Nerevar · 07-30-2005, 01:51

This is almost just like what happened when they found Sedna. I think the major difference here is the thing's size. If it is bigger than Pluto like they're saying then the scientific community may have to finally decide on what exactly qualifies as a planet and what doesn't. So far all I've heard on what makes a heavenly body a planet rather than an orbiting asteroid or planetoid is it's size. So I guess we will find out later when they see fit to announce something.

Quarto · 07-30-2005, 03:14

Am I the only one who finds this whole "moon or planet or asteroid" thing silly? It doesn't matter whether they call this thing a planet, planetoid, moon, or even A Large Space Turd (tm) - at the end of the day, it's still just another entirely unimportant rock floating out in the middle of nowhere that nobody cares about. It doesn't mean anything to anyone, and it would still not mean anything if it was called a planet or even a star. Similarly, they could call the Earth whatever they wanted, and at the end of the day it would still be the Earth. So, who cares what they call it?

Indoril Nerevar · 07-30-2005, 18:37

It matters because somone wants to be famous like Gallileo. As for me I find all this rather fascinating, I've always loved space and the things floating around in it. And who knows, maybe sometime in the distant fute we could colonize the thing?

ChrisReid · 07-30-2005, 23:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Quarto

Am I the only one who finds this whole "moon or planet or asteroid" thing silly? It doesn't matter whether they call this thing a planet, planetoid, moon, or even A Large Space Turd (tm) - at the end of the day, it's still just another entirely unimportant rock floating out in the middle of nowhere that nobody cares about.

I don't think the debate it just what you classify it as. At issue is whether or not it is important enough to care about as a planet. It might not matter to you what they classify it as, but whether it gets officially called a planet or a rogue rock will have a significant impact on how much attention is paid to it in the future. Because of the size, it's definitely not "just another rock" for now.

spiritplumber · 07-31-2005, 13:23

Maybe it's a jump point. ^-^

ChrisReid · 07-31-2005, 14:32

Do you know what a jump point is?

Indoril Nerevar · 07-31-2005, 17:14

Do you know what a joke is?

ChrisReid · 07-31-2005, 17:47

Let's see...

Quote:

joke n.
1) Something said or done to evoke laughter or amusement, especially an amusing story with a punch line.
2) A mischievous trick; a prank.
3) An amusing or ludicrous incident or situation.

That's what I thought.. what's that have to do with anything in this thread?

Ridgerunner · 07-31-2005, 17:51

Jump point, planet, big f... rock, if we don't get off our butts and get out there, what difference does it make?

Bandit LOAF · 07-31-2005, 17:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Indoril Nerevar

Do you know what a joke is?

A joke in this case would be something that fits the definition of the mysterious object but is a Privateer reference. New planet discovered? Maybe it's the weapons cache! Maybe it's the Steltek Drone! Etc.

"Large planet discovered? Must be a jump point!" is kind of like "What's black and white and read all over? Oranges!" At best it's just plain not a joke... at worst it's exceptional ignorance as to what a jump point is.

(The weapons cache probably isn't even a reasonable reference anymore; I'm sure the Privateer Remake actually has an asteroid full of free weapons.)

Indoril Nerevar · 07-31-2005, 18:23

Well when spiritplumber comes back and starts crying because nobody liked his joke I won't be held responsible.

As to whether or not this thing will be a planet, I kind of hope it will be. If they decide to call it such it will be one more thing out there to study in more detail, rather than be mostly forgotten by the normal non-scientific community like Sedna. Most people won't care about it if it turns out to be another kuiper belt object, but I for one would appreciate the publicity. It might even spark up more interest in the space program again, something that's been needed for quite some time in my opinion.

spiritplumber · 08-01-2005, 06:14

Sorry ^^; it would be cool if we found a gravitic anomaly though... and very much agreed on the space program.

as for the weapons cache: Priv Remake has it and Gemini Gold doesn't.

Confed · 08-01-2005, 10:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ridgerunner

... if we don't get off our butts and get out there, what difference does it make?

I agree. It's rather depressing if you consider men walked on the moon in the sixties, when I wasn't even born yet & now, since '72, the farthest a human has gone is in orbit around Earth.
We're going nowhere.
The only exploration that is being done is by telescope : Oh, look! Another planet we'll never get to visit in our lifetime.

Maj.Striker · 08-01-2005, 12:33

Got to agree...rather disappointing that we haven't expanded beyond our planet in the last 4 decades. Damnit...they'd better get a move on things!

Ridgerunner · 08-02-2005, 20:48

Too many touchy feely pussies in NASA nowadays. We need Mercury/Gemini/Apollo project types. You know, "Dear Lord, please don't let me fuck up." "I'm cooler than you are, so why don't you fix your little problems and light this candle!" "Failure is not an option!" "If you can't take getting your nose bloodied, stay home." Oh, wait, that was "Q".

Quarto · 08-03-2005, 00:56

You have to consider, the manned space programme was never about space exploration. Mercury, Gemini, Apollo... nobody in the government really wanted to get man in space or man on the moon for the sake of being there. They just wanted to do it because the Soviets were doing it (and the Soviets wanted to do it because the Americans were...).

Today, there is no space race, so nobody's wasting money on manned space exploration. The moment somebody figures out how to make a profit on it, however - then everything will change.

The way I see it, here's what's gonna happen. Now that somebody's won the X-Prize, over the next few years we'll see the winner of the X-Prize trying to figure out how to bring the costs down so as to allow people-who-are-rich-but-not-millionaires to afford orbital tourist flights. In the meantime, someone will propose a new prize (for sake of argument, we'll call it the M-Prize) for the first private ship to orbit the moon. Once somebody wins that, we'll be all set for new manned moon landings, and beyond that... Mars awaits. Of course, this won't happen overnight, it'll take many years.

And meanwhile, the government? Well, though I hope to be proven wrong, I get the impression that in fifteen years' time, nobody will remember that the US government committed itself to getting to Mars in that timespan. Not unless the Chinese decide to try it...

Malar · 08-03-2005, 04:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by spiritplumber

Sorry ^^; it would be cool if we found a gravitic anomaly though... and very much agreed on the space program.

As it seems, sadly impossible. It's the Kuiper Belt, circling around the sun. It's for a gravitic anomaly (even for an anomaly) impossible to go with the flow of the beld. It would be another gravitational centre. Like a quasar (radio galaxy) which on the other hand can't take place in our galaxy (goodbye Charybdis). For a substellar object like the the fictious wormholes/star-lanes/jump point whatever of WC, I have no clue in which way it could affect its cosmological surrounding as bring some special accelerated and vectored object to another point within the space...

Meson · 08-04-2005, 22:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Quarto

The way I see it, here's what's gonna happen. Now that somebody's won the X-Prize, over the next few years we'll see the winner of the X-Prize trying to figure out how to bring the costs down so as to allow people-who-are-rich-but-not-millionaires to afford orbital tourist flights. In the meantime, someone will propose a new prize (for sake of argument, we'll call it the M-Prize) for the first private ship to orbit the moon. Once somebody wins that, we'll be all set for new manned moon landings, and beyond that... Mars awaits. Of course, this won't happen overnight, it'll take many years.

If anything gets space exploration going, it will be the X-Prise. They changed it to an annual race, which will start in 2007. The race could be what we need.

Bandit LOAF · 08-04-2005, 23:15

Quote:

The way I see it, here's what's gonna happen. Now that somebody's won the X-Prize, over the next few years we'll see the winner of the X-Prize trying to figure out how to bring the costs down so as to allow people-who-are-rich-but-not-millionaires to afford orbital tourist flights. In the meantime, someone will propose a new prize (for sake of argument, we'll call it the M-Prize) for the first private ship to orbit the moon. Once somebody wins that, we'll be all set for new manned moon landings, and beyond that... Mars awaits. Of course, this won't happen overnight, it'll take many years.

The X-Prize was grand for headlines and such... but people don't seem to realize that putting something into orbit is a substantially different task from a suborbital flight. NASA made swapping a Redstone for an Atlas look easy way back when -- but there's no such fundamental plan for improvement built into Spaceshipone. The X-Prize is much more analagous to the X-15 project than it is Mercury. Getting a private manned spacecraft into orbit is going to take a lot of money and a lot of time.

There's also no real evidence that space tourism by the semi-rich is a remotely substainable industry. For all the ranting about how great the X-Prize is for private citizens, it's not overly special -- companies have been perfectly able to put whatever they want in orbit on a commercial basis. If there was a profit to be made by putting men into orbit then a company like Boeing could do it easily -- as it is there's only money from commercial satellites and the like.

Quote:

And meanwhile, the government? Well, though I hope to be proven wrong, I get the impression that in fifteen years' time, nobody will remember that the US government committed itself to getting to Mars in that timespan. Not unless the Chinese decide to try it...

Well, yes and no. On one hand it's entirely likely that NASA will have its budget cut at some future date when the political climate changes... but on the other hand the 'new vision for space exploration' *is* different than previous such declarations in that it has actually become the agencies policy. It's unlikely that a future president will have the interest or the clout to focus NASA on Earth sciences again instead of going to Mars... and until that happens you have a large government agency whose job is to put men on the moon and Mars.

(I'd also wait to see about the Chinese. They certainly like to talk about how grand their man in space program is... but so far all they've managed is a single flight using a Soyuz-copy -- and that was two years ago. We like to set China up as the big bad agressor nation following in the Soviet Union's footsteps for the 21st century, and while no one would like for that to be the case more than they would, there's a lot of infrastructure issues that prevent it from ever being true.)

Quarto · 08-05-2005, 00:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bandit LOAF

The X-Prize was grand for headlines and such... but people don't seem to realize that putting something into orbit is a substantially different task from a suborbital flight.)

Yeah, I know. But headlines are really what's needed in this case, I believe. One thing the X-Prize has demonstrated is that there's plenty of eccentric millionaires out there willing to waste twenty or thirty million dollars just to get a ten million dollar prize. These are the people whose attention we need to focus on space - because indeed, the idea of true space tourism is so risky that no big company would be able to try it (companies like Boeing would simply have no way to justify the risk to their shareholders). It may well be that this effort will ultimately prove futile - but it certainly helps to keep the money flowing, and the public's attention on the space programme far better than shooting a probe into a comet does.

Happy Camper · 08-05-2005, 06:10

~~~, I really don't think anything vaugely affordable or comfortable will be developed in my lifetime... unless I get crygenically frozen, which as regualr forum browsers will know has now been done.

Maj.Striker · 08-05-2005, 06:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Quarto

One thing the X-Prize has demonstrated is that there's plenty of eccentric millionaires out there willing to waste twenty or thirty million dollars just to get a ten million dollar prize. These are the people whose attention we need to focus on space

Haha...yes, let's leave the development of space up to the crazy people with lots of money. I understand your point, it just sounds funny.

ChrisReid · 08-06-2005, 03:22

How the hell did we get so far off topic?

07-29-2005, 18:28	#1
Ptarmigan Captain Join Date: May 2005 Location: Arctic Posts: 405	Large New World Discovered Beyond Neptune It appears tenth planet has been discovered. It could be Planet X. They always talk of a tenth planet. I am pretty sure it is out there. It would be faint because of its distance. Pluto is around magnitude 13.8 to 15, coming from an amateur astronomer. Large New World Discovered Beyond Neptune __________________ I Like Ptarmigans.

07-30-2005, 01:51	#3
Indoril Nerevar 1st Lieutenant Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Caldera Posts: 151	This is almost just like what happened when they found Sedna. I think the major difference here is the thing's size. If it is bigger than Pluto like they're saying then the scientific community may have to finally decide on what exactly qualifies as a planet and what doesn't. So far all I've heard on what makes a heavenly body a planet rather than an orbiting asteroid or planetoid is it's size. So I guess we will find out later when they see fit to announce something. __________________ It puts the lotion in the basket...

07-30-2005, 18:37	#5
Indoril Nerevar 1st Lieutenant Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Caldera Posts: 151	It matters because somone wants to be famous like Gallileo. As for me I find all this rather fascinating, I've always loved space and the things floating around in it. And who knows, maybe sometime in the distant fute we could colonize the thing? __________________ It puts the lotion in the basket...

07-31-2005, 13:23	#7
spiritplumber Lieutenant Colonel Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 913	Maybe it's a jump point. ^-^ __________________ WCU development forum: http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/fo...forum.php?f=12

07-31-2005, 17:14	#9
Indoril Nerevar 1st Lieutenant Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Caldera Posts: 151	Do you know what a joke is? __________________ It puts the lotion in the basket...

07-30-2005, 00:28	#2
ChrisReid Super Soaker Collector Administrator Join Date: Jan 2000 Location: Seattle, Washington, USA Posts: 9,946	http://www.space.com/scienceastronom...ew_planet.html is a better article. I'm not sure how "they" always "talking about it" makes you sure "it's out there." More planets could easily exist, but Planet X cropping up in science fiction and random internet hypothesis doesn't make me believe more planets exist. The problem with new planets in our system at this point is that if we haven't discovered them yet, there's a good chance they're even crazier duds than Pluto. The new object is pretty damn far out and on a weird plane. There's going to be a big movement calling it just another Kuiper Belt object, like all the other tenth planet claims that have come up recently.

07-30-2005, 03:14	#4
Quarto Unknown Enemy Join Date: Jan 2000 Location: Poland Posts: 9,916	Am I the only one who finds this whole "moon or planet or asteroid" thing silly? It doesn't matter whether they call this thing a planet, planetoid, moon, or even A Large Space Turd (tm) - at the end of the day, it's still just another entirely unimportant rock floating out in the middle of nowhere that nobody cares about. It doesn't mean anything to anyone, and it would still not mean anything if it was called a planet or even a star. Similarly, they could call the Earth whatever they wanted, and at the end of the day it would still be the Earth. So, who cares what they call it?

07-31-2005, 14:32	#8
ChrisReid Super Soaker Collector Administrator Join Date: Jan 2000 Location: Seattle, Washington, USA Posts: 9,946	Do you know what a jump point is?

07-31-2005, 17:51	#11
Ridgerunner Lieutenant Colonel Join Date: May 2002 Location: Irving, TX Posts: 796	Jump point, planet, big f... rock, if we don't get off our butts and get out there, what difference does it make? __________________ Something, something, something......

07-31-2005, 18:23	#13
Indoril Nerevar 1st Lieutenant Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Caldera Posts: 151	Well when spiritplumber comes back and starts crying because nobody liked his joke I won't be held responsible. As to whether or not this thing will be a planet, I kind of hope it will be. If they decide to call it such it will be one more thing out there to study in more detail, rather than be mostly forgotten by the normal non-scientific community like Sedna. Most people won't care about it if it turns out to be another kuiper belt object, but I for one would appreciate the publicity. It might even spark up more interest in the space program again, something that's been needed for quite some time in my opinion. __________________ It puts the lotion in the basket...

08-01-2005, 06:14	#14
spiritplumber Lieutenant Colonel Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 913	Sorry ^^; it would be cool if we found a gravitic anomaly though... and very much agreed on the space program. as for the weapons cache: Priv Remake has it and Gemini Gold doesn't. __________________ WCU development forum: http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/fo...forum.php?f=12

08-01-2005, 12:33	#16
Maj.Striker Swabbie Banned Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Des Moines Posts: 2,067	Got to agree...rather disappointing that we haven't expanded beyond our planet in the last 4 decades. Damnit...they'd better get a move on things!

08-02-2005, 20:48	#17
Ridgerunner Lieutenant Colonel Join Date: May 2002 Location: Irving, TX Posts: 796	Too many touchy feely pussies in NASA nowadays. We need Mercury/Gemini/Apollo project types. You know, "Dear Lord, please don't let me fuck up." "I'm cooler than you are, so why don't you fix your little problems and light this candle!" "Failure is not an option!" "If you can't take getting your nose bloodied, stay home." Oh, wait, that was "Q". __________________ Something, something, something......

08-03-2005, 00:56	#18
Quarto Unknown Enemy Join Date: Jan 2000 Location: Poland Posts: 9,916	You have to consider, the manned space programme was never about space exploration. Mercury, Gemini, Apollo... nobody in the government really wanted to get man in space or man on the moon for the sake of being there. They just wanted to do it because the Soviets were doing it (and the Soviets wanted to do it because the Americans were...). Today, there is no space race, so nobody's wasting money on manned space exploration. The moment somebody figures out how to make a profit on it, however - then everything will change. The way I see it, here's what's gonna happen. Now that somebody's won the X-Prize, over the next few years we'll see the winner of the X-Prize trying to figure out how to bring the costs down so as to allow people-who-are-rich-but-not-millionaires to afford orbital tourist flights. In the meantime, someone will propose a new prize (for sake of argument, we'll call it the M-Prize) for the first private ship to orbit the moon. Once somebody wins that, we'll be all set for new manned moon landings, and beyond that... Mars awaits. Of course, this won't happen overnight, it'll take many years. And meanwhile, the government? Well, though I hope to be proven wrong, I get the impression that in fifteen years' time, nobody will remember that the US government committed itself to getting to Mars in that timespan. Not unless the Chinese decide to try it...

08-05-2005, 06:10	#23
Happy Camper Captain Join Date: May 2005 Location: A magical land full of sheep, potatoes, and small mountains Posts: 322	~~~, I really don't think anything vaugely affordable or comfortable will be developed in my lifetime... unless I get crygenically frozen, which as regualr forum browsers will know has now been done. __________________ A pint a day keeps the liver at bay. Webmaster - www.thecult.tk - Go there, now! Woo hoo! 300 posts

08-06-2005, 03:22	#25
ChrisReid Super Soaker Collector Administrator Join Date: Jan 2000 Location: Seattle, Washington, USA Posts: 9,946	How the hell did we get so far off topic?

08-06-2005, 04:14	#26
Death gh0d Administrator Join Date: Jan 2000 Location: Taylors, SC, USA Posts: 2,089