THE REAL NINTH PLANET?

Nice to see a story in the list that does not involve one on a certain British astronaut.

Not only have I seen the first, out one of, space exploration report that does not involve Tim Peake but it's a real shocker.

Well... to be honest it's one I've expected all my life up until they started spotting many other Pluto like planets. Sorry, dwarf planets. Once they found the fourth large dwarf planet that resided in the Kuiper Belt I had given up hope.

I had read and deep in the back of my mind loosely stored several reports for a case of a much larger body out there that were sound in their theorising.

I had remembered, on reading these reports, of claims that something perturbed the natural paths of distant objects in space.

Well now it seems that they have discovered the perturbed paths of enough objects to theorise that there is indeed not only another planet of some kind but a much larger one too.

An artist impression of this ninth planet have emerged with something looking like Neptune but darker.

Funny how they still do this despite how much Pluto shocked everyone.

I also wonder about some reporting of a gas giant planet?

Maybe it's possible the the pressure on a gas giant to some degree prevents said gases from being frozen? Like that on other Kuiper Belt bodies?

It's a very exciting piece of reporting and I hope that somehow they manage to spot it by telescope in the not too distant future.

I've also been of the belief that there exists planets between stellar systems without an orbit to any particular stellar object. In fact I've shared thought the universe is littered with them and think the discovery of this fact may well partly answer a long outstanding puzzle in astronomy. That of the ratio of matter in the universe, which is not quite right.

Now when I learned many years ago about where elements in the periodic table come from I realised that the planets were formed by a different star other than the sun.

In which case there must be many more out there if the sun was able to capture all that it did?

As it is being discovered that many other stellar systems are home to their own planets this is helping my long held theory.

I also had always theorised that most of the stars had their own planets. This was when you were considered a nut-job for thinking more than a few percent had planets. In fact I think it was once believed that none of the visible stars had any planets.

Today the universe is showing the narrow minded scientists that both stars and planets exist, or even exist in relation to reach other, where it was believed to be impossible. Stars measuring 150 times the mass of our sun and Super Jupiters very close to their parent star.

I also wonder what they will name these interstellar planets of they ever discovered them? Pluto being demoted the way it was does not bode well fit them being called planets.

But not being classed as planets will quite literally turn the very naming convention on its own head!

This is because and provided memory serves me correctly, the word 'planet' means wanderer due to the visible planets path across the night sky. In other words different to the stars.

Well I don't know about you but that literal term would be an exact match for homeless planets wandering interstellar space? The Kuiper Belt objects paths not following the elliptical plane, or that of the rest of the planets, also fits this naming convention.

Well all except for those that recently got to decide what a planet actually is.

In fact I think it's safe to say that of there was any argument it was to give a new name to all those currently classed as planets. Because now we understand them they have long since ceased to be the wanderers that they once were.

Wasn't much of a debate as far as I can tell. Lol.

Still I look forward to reading further reports on this new body and how it is much sooner rather than later.

Telescopes have progressed so far in recent times that you have to wonder, along with hope, that it will indeed be sooner rather than later?

Fingers crossed.

Case made for 'ninth planet' - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-35365323

QUESTIONING THE NAIVE

Why bother?

This was a question out to a journalist about the New Horizons mission to Pluto!

I have always been aware that there are people that ask this out there, Christ, I been have one in my family. But their naivety around me so much that I never want to bother giving then an answer.

If they are religious, fanatically so, I certainly won't bother because they will argue with my answer. They are not worthy of an answer because they will only attempt to belittle you with bizarre beliefs they simply cannot back up and science had proved completely wrong for decades now.

This is because there is one simple answer, an answer and details that this particular journalist misses time after time.

The Earth won't stay habitable forever.

In fact I can do as far as stating that though most astronomers would read this and think 'yeah 5 billion years' automatically I would answer 'no, no, NO'.

That figure was always a wild guess with no science to back it up. We have never looked inside our closest star and have no data to base this on.

The sun is far, far more complex and mysterious than Pluto and look how many surprises that had in store.

It's a stab in the dark at best and always has been.

But that's not really the issue here. The answer is not even relevant to the question of how long the Earth will be habitable for. Because in what would essentially be a blink of an eye in comparison a dozen other things would have taken place.

Ice Age
Global Warming continuing unabated (too hot)
Magnetic Flip
Continental Drift
Asteroid Strike
Comet Strike
Global Pandemic that proves untreatable

If I thought long enough I could probably add more.

These things must certainly will happen and in the blink of an eye compared to the sun turning into a Red Giant star.

We stay here indefinitely ... we die. Become extinct. Fact!

Manned space travel had barely grazed the surface of possibilities and so had the technology. Even after all this time.

Now imagine ...

We find out tomorrow that a Comet will wipe out life on Earth in a strike that week take place in five years time?

Firstly do you think we can create the technology and build enough space ships or satellites for people to survive the blast in those five years?

Not a bloody chance!

We also would be hard pushed to predict a strike from space five years before it happens. But then you could make the prediction ten years ahead of time and the outcome would be the same.

Now ever since I was a kid I have wondered whether we would be and to travel through space in decent numbers before a global extinction event ever took place? I was not sure and as we have not had men walk on Mars as predicted by science teachers when I was a kid I an far less certain than I was back then.

Our only hope, no there no excuses, is that one of these global events takes so long to occur we would have made ask the pigeon steps to save ourselves?

It also completely and utterly infuriates me, almost as much as the bollocks religious argument, that they point the finger of wasting money on space travel!

All the ducking wars that have gone on, the defence budgets, the public services, governing bodies and governments doing fuck all or fucking things up and they point the fingers at space exploration and travel?!

The word that springs to mind when I read questions like that either begin with 'T', end in 'K' and have 'HIC' in the middle or something even more insulting! Because they seem to think that the world's problems can be solved by throwing even more money at it than we have done for the past three decades?!

Yes!! Of course it will you blithering idiots! Lol!

Saints above!!

I really do not want to associate with people like that, really I do not!

After a global event wiping out everyone leaving few survivors I would not want to be in any sized party with people that are that naive. I would simply move on because these are the people that would get you killed with that narrow minded kind of thinking. Probably think that all life is wonderful and God created it this way?

No, it is most certainly not and no he did not and if you knew anything about life at all you would know the statement is not only false but utterly ridiculous.

My bloody GOD! I get so annoyed with how narrow minded people can be, I really do! It's like feeding a Locust to a frog in a vivarium. The Locust almost always ends up in the water if not eaten by the frog. It then totally ignores the land section with shallow water and keeps kicking itself headfirst into the corner of a tank like it's suddenly going to magically work with one out of the fifty kicks before it drowns! Turn left and kick a couple of times and it's saved from drowning. But, no ... it will continue to headbutt the wrong end of the cage until our perishes.

That's the word that pops into my head when I hear religious fanatics and hopelessly native people ... 'LOCUSTS', or the human version of.

You want to believe that utter rubbish then go right ahead ... but please don't alert everyone to tour narrow mindedness and naivety by asking out loud on the Internet very stupid questions!

Lmao!

New Horizons: Why bother exploring the Solar System? - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-33569565

AT THE FRONTIER

Ever since I was a kid I have been fascinated by the Universe and the many possibilities it holds.

It is true to say and I've said it before that even as a child I didn't buy into some of the commonly held theories within the fields of Astronomy and Astrophysics.

What for my imagination working over time though we're the probes and craft sent out to have close encounters with the planets in our own solar system, while wondering if my own theory that most stars out there have many planets of their own would ever be proven. To the latter I thought it probably unlikely to happen in my lifetime. Though my understanding of technology and science kept telling me that they would. So in a way, umm a very rare way, I feel quite fortunate.

Just like on Earth I was always more interested in the furthest distances. I always wanted my father to drive an extra ten miles to see what they're was to discover.

So it should come as no surprise to now read that Pluto, Charon and the Kuiper belt and beyond were asking my most dreamt of scenarios? Today, Tuesday 14th July 2015, the spacecraft that is called New Horizons, actually does with a few thousands miles of Pluto. A mission I seem to have waited for all my life.

A crying shame that Patrick Moore did not live long enough to see it! I would have dealt loved to hear his thoughts on the missions discoveries!

I also find it fascinating that the data collected today is so vast in size that it will take something like 18 months, give or take, to send it all back. My, my what an interesting 18 months I have ahead of me what with this mission and developments about to take place in my other blog subjects! Very interesting indeed!

I am fascinated with the images already taken that I had to check it was not April 1st, what with those impossible four large dark circles on the lower half of Pluto, the heart shaped light area and the dark whale shaped like area! I bet no one alive expected any one of those three and I for one cannot wait to see the results of these planned experiments!

Then there are the moons of Charon, Styx ... err Nix what it? The others ... ohh think one was Kerberos. Even then there are any new moons that could be found, rings, oceans, atmosphere and of course your in the Kuiper Belt! Coool!

So will there be any more planets, sorry dwarf planets lol, to add to the few known already? You just gotta wonder?!

In case you missed it, slept under a space rock or just been otherwise distracted there is a link below to explain what is about to happen.

What New Horizons Is Looking For On Pluto, And How http://flip.it/moxrX