Persistent Evidence of a Jovian Mass Solar Companion in the Oort Cloud

[Fumesucker]

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=33991

We present an updated dynamical and statistical analysis of outer Oort cloud cometary evidence suggesting the sun has a wide-binary Jovian mass companion. The results support a conjecture that there exists a companion of mass ~ 1-4 M_Jup orbiting in the innermost region of the outer Oort cloud. Our most restrictive prediction is that the orientation angles of the orbit normal in galactic coordinates are centered on the galactic longitude of the ascending node Omega = 319 degree and the galactic inclination i = 103 degree (or the opposite direction) with an uncertainty in the normal direction subtending ~ 2% of the sky. A Bayesian statistical analysis suggests that the probability of the companion hypothesis is comparable to or greater than the probability of the null hypothesis of a statistical fluke. Such a companion could also have produced the detached Kuiper Belt object Sedna. The putative companion could be easily detected by the recently launched Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE).

[Ian David]

1. Is this a credible source? Not familiar with SpaceRef.com n/t

[Bill McBlueState]

2. it's been *submitted* to Icarus

http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/1004.4584v1

Most astronomers consider it bad form to post something to astro-ph that's been submitted to a journal but not accepted.

[Ian David]

3. Thanks. n/t

[baldguy]

4. Will the IAU consider it a planet if it hasn't "cleared the neighborhood" around its orbit?

It'd have a hell of a lot of clearing to do in the Oort Cloud.

[Cobalt-60]

5. A Giant Dwarf Planet

I say if you orbit the sun and have the gravitational moxie to pull yourself into a sphere, you're a planet.

[Fumesucker]

6. That would make Ceres a planet then..

[Cobalt-60]

7. It was officially one for 50 years

It was demoted the same way as Pluto and the others about 1850.
It circled through an untidy hood, so it wasn't a planet.
In my book Ceres is a planet and so are Pluto and MakeMake.
You may inform the IAU that I've got their dwarf planet hanging.

[pokerfan]

8. That's just taxonomy

and I don't get bent out of shape over taxonomy. Does biology neatly fit into seven hierarchies (kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species)?