Monday, February 21, 2011

Is There Something Strange At The Edge Of Our Solar System

At the edge of our solar system lie a number of small icy bodies that are believed to make up the long hypothesised 'Oort Cloud'. Some researchers believe that a hypothetical planet bigger than Jupiter called 'Tyche' is located here. You may ask why would such a planet not have been observed by a telescope by now, speculators claim that 'Tyche' would be too cold and would not give out enough visible light to make it observable by conventional means. Nasa's WISE, the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, however, may provide the evidence that is necessary to prove the existence of such a planet or to lend weight towards dismissing it. WISE scanned the entire celestial sky from earths orbit at the infrared wavelength and if 'Tyche' is there there is a very high probability that WISE will be able to detect it because even if the planet is very cold it will still emit infrared radiation that WISE could detect. There is still much analysis to be done on the data produced by WISE but if things go 'Tyche's' way after losing Pluto through planetary relegation we could be about to gain a colossus. MRHP is crossing all the Owl's feathers.  


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