[meteorite-list] Pluto's Fate to be Decided by 'Scientific andSimp

[Ron Baalke]

> 
> Bigger than Pluto?  At greater AUs'out?
> 
> This could explain the comets that come out of the blue appear once and
> never return.
> 
> Did not astronomers think that it was interstellar perturbations that
> "jarred" the K-belt?
> 
> A large "planet(s)" out there would have much more effect than stars
> light years away.
> 

We would have seen evidence of a large planet by now, which we've haven't.
Analysis by Myles Standish at JPL indicates that a large planet out
beyond Neptune does not exist.  Some astronomers have been searching 
for a Planet X based on what appeared to be irregularities
in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune.  However, when the extremely accurate 
measurements of the mass of Neptune made by the Voyager 2 flyby in 1989
are inserted in the equations, these irregularities vanish.  Prior to the
Voyager 2 flyby, the mass number used for Neptune was off by five-tenths
of 1 percent.   When the new value for Neptune's mass is factored into the
equations, the orbits of the outer planets are shown to be moving as exp
ected, going all the way back to the early 1800's.  The results of Standish's 
analysis are published in the May 1993 issue of The Astronomical Journal

Ron Baalke