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Log in"SEARCH FOR PLANET X"
"SEARCH FOR PLANET X"
Redhead on Tue Jun 09, 2009 9:22 pm
* In 1841, John Couch Adams began investigating the by then quite large residuals in the motion of Uranus. In 1845, Urbain Le Verrier started to investigate them, too. Adams presented two different solutions to the problem, assuming that the deviations were caused by the gravitation from an unknown planet.
* Sept 30, 1846 —- one week after the discovery of Neptune, Le Verrier declared that there may be still another unknown planet out there. On October 10, Neptune's large moon Triton was discovered, which yielded an easy way to accurately determine the mass of Neptune, which turned out to be 2% larger than expected from the perturbations upon Uranus.
* Another attempt to find a trans-Neptunian planet was done in 1877 by David Todd. He used a "graphical method", from the residuals of Uranus, he derived elements for a trans-Neptunian planet: mean distance 52 a.u., period 375 years, magnitude fainter than 13.
* In 1879, Camille Flammarion added another hint as to the existence of a planet beyond Neptune: the aphelia of periodic comets tend to cluster around the orbits of major planets. Jupiter has the greatest share of such comets, and Saturn, Uranus and Neptune also have a few each.
* Percival Lowell, most well known as a proponent for canals on Mars, built a private observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. Lowell called his hypothetical planet Planet X, and performed several searches for it, without success. Lowell's first search for Planet X came to an end in 1909, but in 1913 he started a second search, with a new prediction of Planet X: epoch 1850-01-01, mean long 11.67 deg, perih. long 186, eccentricity 0.228, mean dist 47.5 a.u. long arc node 110.99 deg, inclination 7.30 deg, mass 1/21000 solar masses. Lowell and others searched in vain for this Planet X in 1913-1915. In 1915, Lowell published his theoretical results of Planet X. It is ironic that this very same year, 1915, two faint images of Pluto was recorded at Lowell observatory, although they were never recognized as such until after the discovery of Pluto (1930).
* Sept 30, 1846 —- one week after the discovery of Neptune, Le Verrier declared that there may be still another unknown planet out there. On October 10, Neptune's large moon Triton was discovered, which yielded an easy way to accurately determine the mass of Neptune, which turned out to be 2% larger than expected from the perturbations upon Uranus.
* Another attempt to find a trans-Neptunian planet was done in 1877 by David Todd. He used a "graphical method", from the residuals of Uranus, he derived elements for a trans-Neptunian planet: mean distance 52 a.u., period 375 years, magnitude fainter than 13.
* In 1879, Camille Flammarion added another hint as to the existence of a planet beyond Neptune: the aphelia of periodic comets tend to cluster around the orbits of major planets. Jupiter has the greatest share of such comets, and Saturn, Uranus and Neptune also have a few each.
* Percival Lowell, most well known as a proponent for canals on Mars, built a private observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. Lowell called his hypothetical planet Planet X, and performed several searches for it, without success. Lowell's first search for Planet X came to an end in 1909, but in 1913 he started a second search, with a new prediction of Planet X: epoch 1850-01-01, mean long 11.67 deg, perih. long 186, eccentricity 0.228, mean dist 47.5 a.u. long arc node 110.99 deg, inclination 7.30 deg, mass 1/21000 solar masses. Lowell and others searched in vain for this Planet X in 1913-1915. In 1915, Lowell published his theoretical results of Planet X. It is ironic that this very same year, 1915, two faint images of Pluto was recorded at Lowell observatory, although they were never recognized as such until after the discovery of Pluto (1930).
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