DES finds 300+ minor planets beyond Neptune, 100+ are new

[notFritzArgelander]

https://phys.org/news/2020-03-minor-pla ... ptune.html

[helicon]

Well it would be nice to find planet IX (sorry Pluto!) and even better if it is a Neptune sized object. But adding 300 minor planets beyond the orbit of Neptune is amazing. Some really interesting results to cogitate over. And kudos to those who have been able to use this technological approach to ID these objects. Is Nabiru still out there?

[notFritzArgelander]

Nibiru is always out there since it’s in mythical space.

[AntennaGuy]

Sounds like a useful resource. First, we'll mine the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Later, we'll mine the asteroid belt beyond Neptune (on our way out of the solar system). Nice to know we won't run out of raw minerals until we get really far away.

[notFritzArgelander]

Sounds like a useful resource. First, we'll mine the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Later, we'll mine the asteroid belt beyond Neptune (on our way out of the solar system). Nice to know we won't run out of raw minerals until we get really far away.

At the rate we're going we will not get off the planet in numbers to warrant resource worry.

[GCoyote]

Sounds like a useful resource. First, we'll mine the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Later, we'll mine the asteroid belt beyond Neptune (on our way out of the solar system). Nice to know we won't run out of raw minerals until we get really far away.

I've yet to see a convincing economic case for returning much of anything to Earth as a profit-making business venture. You'd have better margins for extracting resources from the waste brine produced by desalinization plants with the added advantages of locations near the potential markets and a good deal of the infrastructure would be built anyway because of increasing demand for potable water.

The only compelling scenarios I've seen for extractive operations in space is to boot-strap further exploration by avoiding the cost of bringing bulk materials up from the Earth's gravity well.

[GCoyote]

Well it would be nice to find planet IX (sorry Pluto!) and even better if it is a Neptune sized object. But adding 300 minor planets beyond the orbit of Neptune is amazing. Some really interesting results to cogitate over. And kudos to those who have been able to use this technological approach to ID these objects. ...

Question for those who understand the orbital mechanics and signal issues better than I do: Would it make sense to put a spacecraft in a retrograde orbit a bit beyond Neptune to try to get a better census of our system's 'suburbs'? I would think that such a platform would see far more proper motion against the background stars and that might allow much more rapid identification and characterization of the TNOs and other minor bodies in the region. Might even spot some long period comets years before an Earth-based or LEO based sensor and give us the requisite decades of warning needed for a successful deflection mission.

[notFritzArgelander]

It's an interesting idea that deserves a look. I think that planning the mission orbit so fuel costs are not prohibitive is challenging but not impossible. In a retrograde orbit micrometeoroid impacts might be the biggest worry?

[GCoyote]

Thanks. May have to find a satellite simulator and play with this a bit.