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RfC: Images used for Planet Nine

(Notifying previously involved editors: Jehochman, prokaryotes, Serendipodous, Fut.Perf. ☼, Ephraim33, Nergaal, Neutron, Leitmotiv, Kheider, Wnt, Nowa, Itu, Smkolins, Tom Ruen and Jonathunder.)

I really think we need more input regarding the images used on this article. There have been a few previous discussions[1][2][3][4][5] but no clear consensus was demonstrated. I propose that we pool our collective opinions here and put things to a vote. Since there are 2 questionable images I'll split this into 2 subsections.

Artist's impression in the infobox

File:Planet-Nine-in-Outer-Space-artistic-depiction.jpg
An artist's impression of Planet Nine

The infobox currently shows an artist's impression of Planet Nine (right), which appears to be closely based on an image released by Caltech credited to R. Hurt (IPAC). While artist's impressions may help to grab the reader's attention I do not think that it's becoming of an encyclopedia to reproduce them here and I propose that it be removed, or at the very least removed from the infobox. The only information it conveys are basic assumptions, which could easily mislead the reader. A view of the Earth can be found here in which the planet's size and distance from the Sun is similarly not conveyed. Please bear in mind that even if you don't find the picture misleading, others undoubtedly will.

Propose the complete removal of artist's impression. Sorry. nagualdesign 03:43, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Plenty of artist's impressions are in infoboxes in this encyclopedia. There is no rational reason for its removal. The only issue I have with it is that it is unclear where the Sun is, and how far away it is. Serendipodous 08:07, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
Could you cite some examples? Last time I asked this question the only example was at Gamma-ray burst. The reason artist's impressions are used there is because detailed images aren't available, but we want to convey the formation and structure of GRBs to the reader. They are based on scientific facts. The image of Planet Nine, on the other hand, supposes that this hypothetical planet may well be an ice giant, whereas the actual hypothesis only deals with orbits and masses. Yes, you could argue that Planet Nine might be found tomorrow and turn out to be an ice giant, but it could also be disproved or found to be something else entirely. As an encyclopedia I think WP only ought to represent what we do know - in this case, that the orbits of several TNOs could be explained by the presence of a ninth planet. nagualdesign 22:28, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
Black hole? Pulsar? Giant impact hypothesis? Formation and evolution of the Solar System? As for it being an ice giant, that isn't a guess on our part; it is a stated conclusion by the author of the proposing paper. Of course, if we find out that is incorrect, we can always change the image, but right now the image reflects scientific facts as far as we know them. Serendipodous 22:59, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
The rationale for having artist's impressions in those articles is the same as for Gamma-ray burst. They convey a great deal of scientific knowledge (facts). The conclusion of the author of this paper is far from reflecting "scientific facts as far as we know them". I'm not saying it's a logical fallacy, but it's a bit like saying that Planet Nine will be blue. When it comes to hypotheses we should present the premise not the conclusion, in my opinion, but if you don't agree I'm not going to try to convince you. Let's just put this to a vote, eh? nagualdesign 23:52, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
...Sorry for the belated response but it is not a stated conclusion by the author of the proposing paper that P9 is an ice giant! The paper actually says, "Specifically, it is possible that our perturber represents a primordial giant planet core that was ejected during the nebular epoch of the solar system’s evolution. Recent simulations have demonstrated that such a scenario may in fact be an expected outcome of the early evolution of planetary systems (Bromley & Kenyon 2014). Moreover, the calculations of Izidoro et al. (2015), aimed at modeling the formation of Uranus and Neptune through a series of giant impacts (needed to reproduce the planetary obliquities—see, e.g., Morbidelli et al. 2012), have demonstrated that a system of protoplanetary cores typically generates more than two ice-giant planets. Accordingly, the work of Izidoro et al. (2015) predicts that one or more protoplanetary cores would have been ejected out of the solar system." I'm actually annoyed that I believed you. I assumed you'd read the paper, but now I guess not. So... why are we showing a picture of an ice giant again? To mislead each other?! nagualdesign 07:16, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
If Jupiter or Saturn had tried to eject another gas giant from the inner Solar System, Jupiter/Saturn's orbit(s) would probably never had recovered. So the best fits are ice giants, mini-Neptunes (pretty much the same thing), and Super-Earths. -- Kheider (talk) 08:27, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
Let me be perfectly clear, it is not a "stated conclusion by the author of the proposing paper" that Planet Nine is an ice giant, which is what User:Serendipodous claimed. nagualdesign 22:13, 9 February 2016 (UTC)

To cause the effects that we see, the mass of Planet Nine must be about 10 times the mass of the Earth. It is possible that a mass as low as 5 Earth masses will work. It is also possible that it could be higher. More computer simulations are required to answer these questions. Such an object seems likely to be an ejected ice giant core, thus we assume that the size of Planet Nine is between about 2 times the radius of the Earth and 4 times the radius of the Earth, in keeping with observations of exoplanets of similar mass. We further assume that Planet Nine looks like Neptune and has a similar albedo.

Mike Brown, WHere is Planet Nine? Serendipodous 10:17, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
Yes, it "seems likely to be an ejected ice giant core" therefore they assume a particular radius (based on the mass) and further assume the appearance and albedo. You understand the difference, right? As in, "I assumed you'd read the paper, but now I conclude that you hadn't." nagualdesign 23:11, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
They are assuming that this planet exists in the first place! Everything about this planet is assumed! We assume the Oort cloud exists! Does that mean we can't have an artist's impression to illustrate it? Serendipodous 05:57, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
*sigh* You've pretty much exemplified the problem with presenting an article as if it were about a hypothetical planet rather than the hypothesis itself. The authors of the original paper are not "assuming" that Planet Nine exists at all, they're presenting the findings of a scientific analysis that lends credence to a hypothesis. The fact that most people are unlikely to appreciate the distinction is precisely the reason why I labelled this artist's impression as misleading. nagualdesign 08:29, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
@Nagualdesign:.Well, again, what about the Oort cloud? We have no actual proof that it exists; no one has seen it, and no one knows precisely what it looks like. Its existence is inferred from the motions of outer Solar System objects, just like Planet Nine. Should we remove the artist's conception of it? Serendipodous 11:35, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
I'm no Oort cloud expert, but the fact that it is theoretical whereas Planet Nine is hypothetical makes a big difference. If you think artist's impressions should be removed from that page I suggest you take it up on the talk page there. nagualdesign 22:06, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
I take the Oort cloud image more like a diagram/schematic than an actual picture. Nergaal (talk) 23:48, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
Artists' impressions seem common in infoboxes for exoplanets, and those articles may be good places to go for reference or in search of precedent. Exoplanets have an important characteristic in common with Planet Nine: there's no chance of anyone getting an actual photo of them anytime soon. -- DanielKlotz (talk · contribs) 21:15, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
There is no need to remove an infobox image unless it fails to meet WP:AIAO. Davidbuddy9 Talk  15:43, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
Thank you for the link. I would argue that the infobox image fails to meet WP:AIAO. nagualdesign 21:21, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
Wow - if the rules really include the actual source of the graphic itself is a reliable then don't you get into the whole copyright/own work issue all over again? An artistic impression must normally be copyrighted. But if the general guidelines is more based on reliable info that makes more sense to me.--Smkolins (talk) 21:42, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
Actually, I'd cite the opening paragraph: "When choosing images to illustrate astronomical objects editors should select images with maximum potential to inform readers and minimum potential to misinform readers. Before illustrating an astronomical object with an artist's impression, editors should consider whether a figure, diagram, or telescopic image would strike a better balance of information vs. speculation." And the fact that Planet Nine is a hypothetical astronomical object. nagualdesign 02:28, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose The text below the image and in the detail view makes it very clear that it's an artist impression. Therefore it cannot mislead people, and based on pure assumptions that people might be mislead to think this is the real planet, is not a reason to remove the image. As pointed out above there are many other articles which include artist images. To remove images based on pure speculation, images created for commons, sends the wrong signal to artists and content creators. prokaryotes (talk) 22:53, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
  • 'Oppose'Support To the extent it needs a vote, I support the concept art as is. I find the actual original caltech art problematic because it shows lightning and that's not clear to me.--Smkolins (talk) 00:06, 6 February 2016 (UTC) Revised because the art seems like a copyright infringement to me.--Smkolins (talk) 22:49, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Remove - show the actual astronomy, and if there is none then show nothing rather than fantasy. Suggest also looking at or working with how this topic rolled out in discussions at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Astronomy, seem to recall this topic over exoplanet artwork. It may also simply follow WP:Weight on if most references will/will not show art. Markbassett (talk) 01:45, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
The discussion you reference can be found here. A2soup (talk) 18:13, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
A2soup Thanks ! The resulting draft guideline there is to only use if (1) done by a RS and (2) the caption must start "An artist's impression". I think the issue there included that someone just dubbed artwork over that was not about the article topic. Markbassett (talk) 21:39, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
@Markbassett: No problem! Also note that that guideline you mention is currently being discussed at its talk page - since it's kind of new, we're seeing if we can better tailor it to consensus as it emerges from discussions like this one. Feel free to add your thoughts to the discussion. A2soup (talk) 21:43, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Undecided, probably meaning wait for more useful pictures before scrapping these - Artworks do help a lot of people get a mental hold on matters, which for non-technical readers, can be valuable even if the concept is wobbly. It is not as though some reader will look at a picture and develop a new religion or scientific delusion based on it. Anyone who takes such a picture too seriously would not be equipped to understand an accurate picture anyway. But certainly keep an alert lookout for better pics in the meantime. JonRichfield (talk) 11:34, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Remove from infobox - One could make a good argument that since it substantially replicates an image from a RS, it complies with the spirit, if not the letter, of WP:AIAO. A point for it is that it omits the speculative lightning in the RS image; a point against it is that it lacks the info on distance from the sun present in the RS image. On the balance, I think it's acceptable to retain the image in the article for now, but it would be better to use an orbit diagram for the infobox. A2soup (talk) 21:06, 7 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Remove. And I suggest ditto for any artist's impression which is not a "forensic photofit", that is, I suggest, unless the impression is based on specifically predicted luminosity, colour, actual features, etc., then it is completely meaningless and IS misleading. It is just any black blob with a starry background, pretty and nicely fanciful, but definitely not encyclopedic. The same applies to the background in the impression, ie, impression looking from 10,000km above surface towards center of the Milky Way. Unless I have missed something . . . (Actually I think WP:AIAO needs a bit of tightening up.) Aoziwe (talk) 07:05, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
@Aoziwe: Re WP:AIAO, I wrote it fairly recently (some months ago) in response to a spirited and divided discussion at WikiProject Astronomy. I wrote it to reflect the maximum consensus that could be extracted from a discussion that showed little consensus. The intention was very much that it would be a place to record the consensus on artist's impressions as it evolved, not as a final word on the matter. If you think it should have additional criteria or other "tightening up", do not hesitate to propose and discuss changes. It is natural (and desirable!) that discussions such as this one will change consensus views on the matter, and those changes should be reflected in the guideline. The main challenge is attracting enough participation to establish a legitimate consensus. A2soup (talk) 18:09, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
@A2soup: Firstly well done on the guideline WP:AIAO. I do think it is actually not bad at all. (I have only come back to Wikipedia a few weeks ago after a gap of seven years so missed your work on this.) See here for my suggestion to tighten it up a bit. Even without this, I think this image already fails WP:AIAO on all counts other than it being good(?) artistically. Certainly as you say above it should come out of the infobox, and I do not believe it adds any encyclopedic value anywhere else in the article. Aoziwe (talk) 06:00, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
Hi, i am the person who made the image, can you elaborate why it fails on all accounts? It reads An "artist's impression of...". And it is not really an astronomical object, until it is confirmed. Btw. thanks for the artistically good (yes it is pretty good) :) prokaryotes (talk) 12:52, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
Hi @Prokaryotes:. Yes I do like the image itself. However, it does not look like either of the two ice giants we have already actually photographed Uranus and Neptune. For example see in the article itself, composition, which specifically refers to it being of similar composition to these two planets so presumably it should look somewhat similar even if a bit darker due to less light from the Sun due to distance. Currently the image is almost completely black. How have you shown size, that is, have you taken a nominal distance from the planet of say 50,000 km? May I be bold and suggest another image specifically taking into account the characteristics cited in the article and extrapolated from known similar planets. If you can do this faithfully, you will have me supporting the result. (By the way, I think "An artist's impression . . ." should only be a reason for keeping it in the article, not putting it there in the first place. See my suggestion re WP:AIAO.) Aoziwe (talk) 14:10, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Remove I actually like the art from an artistic standpoint, and might even be inclined to support its inclusion if planet nine were in fact known for certain to exist, for much the same reasons I might support similar art on an exoplanet article. But in this particular case I have to agree with User:Nagualdesign: given in particular the way this has been reported in the popular science press, many people will be inclined to think that planet nine has actually been discovered, and an artist's impression of the hypothetical planet serves to reinforce that misconception. I think the article would be well served by some sort of image in the infobox, but until planet nine's existence is confirmed, I think it should be art more in keeping with the hypothetical nature of the subject matter. For example, something like Mike Brown's own treasure map on his blog (or a more artistically rendered version of it), or else an orbital diagram with a shaded "zone" indicating planet nine's probable location. Graphs and charts of this sort, while not as appealing in a sci-fi way, convey the "scientific" nature of the article at a glance and indicate to the casual reader quickly that this is probably not a "gee whiz, they discovered a planet" article. Eniagrom (talk) 18:28, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose/Keep: I find the artist impression a reasonable presentation of an ice giant. Removing this reasonable image will probably result in frequent drive-by editors inserting much worse images such as a brown dwarf or other nonsense. -- Kheider (talk) 19:35, 8 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Relocate/Remove Its position in the infobox is misleading because even as an artist's illustration, it gives the undue impression that the hypothesis of Planet Nine exists as an actual planetary body. A layperson could easily mistakenly assume from the image that the planet does indeed exist, but that there are no known images of it. The image may be more informative in the "Visibility" section of the article, where it can inform the reader of how the planet may not be able to reflect sunlight. Otherwise, I think it should go. --Iamozy (talk) 21:23, 9 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Support/Remove The existence of the planet is hypothetical, as is its size, color, atmosphere thickness, albedo and distance to the Sun; a biased illustration is misleading. Cheers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 00:12, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Leaning support removal simply because this is a hypothetical planet. Having a hypothetical depiction of a hypothetical object is ok to do in fictional writing, but I think it is a bit much for an encyclopedia. Nergaal (talk) 02:58, 10 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Remove. The image is a work of fiction; and not even a plausible one. It does nothing to convey understanding. Maproom (talk) 08:08, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
    Actually if P9 exists, it is most likely to be an ice giant. Why are you foolishly claiming the image is not plausible? -- Kheider (talk) 14:37, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose/Keep - I have no problem with artistic renderings like the one under discussion, along with a clear caption "An artist's impression of..." I think an artistic view helps pull readers to the topic. So I'd support ANY imagine that is consistent with best guess appearances of a hypothetical object. Besides its appearance will still be hypothetical even if we discover it. But if we have two or more proposed renderings, then I'd lean towards the most used public sources, even if lower artistic quality. That is, if we find news articles repeating one artistic image, and that image has a copyright status that allows it to be on Wikipedia, it makes sense to go with that. And if later we have a hypothetical "Planet ten" it might end up with a different "standard" artistic image that becomes connected to that object, even if best know properties of both are identical. Tom Ruen (talk) 17:41, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
Incidentally, this seems to be the more public new alternative image [1], so if that image could be added to Wikipedia, I'd support it. It's labeled as "An artist's rendering shows the distant view from "Planet Nine" back towards the sun, in this handout photo provided by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, California, January 20, 2016. REUTERS/R. Hurt/Caltech/IPAC/Handout via Reuters" Tom Ruen (talk) 17:50, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
This image is also used in the Caltech video [2], seen between 1:15-1:27, the first time showing a size comparison between earth and Neptune. It is credited as "Artist's concept and animation: Robert Hurt (Caltech/IPAC) & WorldWide Telescope" Tom Ruen (talk) 17:55, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
The image under discussion was created specifically because the image you mention is under copyright. Serendipodous 18:28, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
Has anyone asked for special licensing for Wikipedia? Or maybe a fair use low resolution version would be accepted, just for this article? Otherwise, a similar forgery by a Wiki-artist sounds like a perfect compromise. Tom Ruen (talk) 20:59, 11 February 2016 (UTC)
Fair-use is out...a free alternative exists, whether editors like it is another story. Similarly, the existing image essentially is the "forgery" of the Caltech/IPAC image. — Huntster (t @ c) 04:19, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
I've added a line and a source to the caption explaining that it's based on Mike Brown's conjectures. Serendipodous 10:01, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Remove. That "image" has nothing to do here. Crediting it as an "artistic rendering" of Planet Nine can give to the reader the impression that this planet exists and it has been actually located somewhere. Silvio1973 (talk) 18:19, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose blanked removal of artist impression images from this article; so as long as we don't have an image of that planet an artistic impression is OK. However:
  1. The image should not be a non-free work or a derivative of a non-free work (the Caltech image, as discussed here is most likely non-free); we probably cannot justify a non-free image because it can be replaced with a free one.
  2. We can't have original research here, so any user made image needs to be strictly based on known facts, particularly regarding the stellar background, position and appearance of the sun and of the hypothetical planet.
This more or less requires an image made by an user (or by NASA?) with some expertise in astronomy and art and that is in no way copied from the Caltech image. Otherwise, an image of the orbit seems OK to me.Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 17:18, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose removal of artistic impression. We should make it better. An image is an important piece of content that conveys what the scientific consensus is about the location, size and appearance of this planet. Also, the RFC should be left open longer so that people have ample time to comment and to be swayed by arguments one way or the other. We should try to get to a consensus, not just counting noses. Jehochman Talk 14:09, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
As I explained, nobody is going to close the RfC while it is ongoing. I only suggested that we close it, and provided a summary of the results, because nobody had added anything for a while. I've tried very hard to reach a consensus and address some of the issues raised. We now have an image with 'real' stars, an indication of the distance to the Sun (provided by the orbit of Neptune) and no conjectural surface map. I should point out that there is no scientific consensus about the location, size and appearance of this hypothetical planet, and the fact that you believe there is tells me that you too have misunderstood the level of certainty implied by Batygin and Brown. "Planet Nine" is one possible explanation for the orbits under scrutiny. nagualdesign 12:15, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
...Sorry to keep circling back to the same point, but the wording of your post got me thinking. "An image is an important piece of content that conveys what the scientific consensus is." This, in a nutshell, is precisely the reason I believe that some people will find the artistic impression misleading. Well, not that they'll find it misleading, per se, but that they will simply be misled. They won't be aware of that of course, they'll just go away slightly stupider than when they arrived. It's perfectly normal for people to make assumptions based on an image because images are normally used precisely for that reason. The problem is, in this instance, there is no such consensus. nagualdesign 13:14, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Remove/no infobox image It's too early for an image following the spirit of WP:CRYSTALBALL. As more information (hopefully) comes in to confirm things, images might become more relevant for the lede or infobox, but not at this point. Kingofaces43 (talk) 06:10, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Forgery

Note: If we want a reason to delete this image, it does look like it was derived from the original. If you brighten the wiki version, you can see the same features in the dark side of the planet. So its just the background that has been changed. Tom Ruen (talk) 21:32, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

Temporary comparative image to be deleted: File:Planet nine artistic images.png

Agreed. We have a problem. We need an authentic new artistic conception. --Smkolins (talk) 11:34, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
@Smkolins: If you no longer oppose the removal of this image (to the extent it needs a vote) please will you strike your opposition from the list above, so that this RfC can (eventually) be concluded more easily? Thanks. nagualdesign 22:13, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
I believe it rises above the vote in question but sure.--Smkolins (talk) 22:47, 17 February 2016 (UTC)
I have no problem with removing this particular image; what I have a problem with is the idea that this article shouldn't have an illustrative image at all. Serendipodous 06:50, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
I agree an artistic conception is fine in principle.--Smkolins (talk) 08:18, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
I have globally replaced the copyright violation version of the image with one that appears okay, and have tagged the copyvio for deletion. — Huntster (t @ c) 16:59, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
@Huntster: You seem to have replaced one image with a nearly identical image here and there are several more on Commons which are also copyright violations. nagualdesign 02:15, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
@Nagualdesign:, yes, but it does not appear to contain copyrighted elements as the previous one did. That was the point of this subsection. — Huntster (t @ c) 04:24, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
I support this version though I find the file size of 4MB seemingly a bit large. I'd bet it delays loading the page a touch. But in terms of elements it seems a distinct form compared to the Robert Hurt/Caltech original to me.--Smkolins (talk) 08:18, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
Both images are based on the Caltech image and take the planet itself directly from the Caltech version. Since they are both remixes of copyrighted material either they are both infringements or neither is. Cloning out the lightning storms and adding a bit of milkiness to the atmosphere makes it no less of a derivative work. nagualdesign 09:15, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
So you say. From my pov it isn't clear that it has to be a copyright infringement.
Conceptually it did occur to me that the bluenesss is seemingly based more on Neptune than we might have call for - Neptune's blueness is because of a methane presence in the atmosphere and so far all we have is a discussion proposing a hydrogen-helium envelope. I'd guess it could be more gray in color based solely on hydrogen-helium. But I don't find it very objectionable. Conceptually if the galactic core is supposed to be the background then I'd say the sun should be "behind" P9 and thus provide a ringed glow of the atmosphere - perhaps take a view from Pluto's recent picture being careful not to use the blue of some versions because again that derives from methane. This angle also happens to fit the view from the predicted general area of the aphelion.--Smkolins (talk) 09:46, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
@Nagualdesign:, I'm not seeing the current image's planet as being copied from the Caltech original. Based on, yes, but not copied and I don't think similar enough to be considered derivative. However, if you are dead-set against this image and still believe it to be a copyright violation, please nominate it for deletion on Commons. — Huntster (t @ c) 17:47, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
I guarantee you that both of these images have taken the planet from the Caltech image, it's just that one has been developed (or disguised) more than the other. I've added the image to the samples above. I never said that I was dead-set against this image on the grounds that it's a copyright violation though. Remixes are arguably fair-use, though I'm no expert. I was just (politely) pointing out your mistake; that both images are derivatives. nagualdesign 22:59, 19 February 2016 (UTC)
@Nagualdesign, Smkolins, and Tomruen:, etc.: this image has been nominated for discussion/deletion on Commons, please see Commons:Commons:Deletion requests/File:Planet-Nine-in-Outer-Space-artistic-depiction.jpg and add your opinions. If found to be derivative, it will have to be deleted on Commons, but additionally, fair use of the image locally is out of the question because a freely licensed illustration of this topic could be created by someone. Thanks for your input. Also, Nagual, the three images you pointed out in the Planet Nine category have been deleted as copyright violations. Thanks for that. — Huntster (t @ c) 07:41, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
Ahh.. I see now. Herein lies the porky. Or perhaps Prokaryotes simply doesn't understand the word derivative. (Tip: Copy/pasted images are derivatives!) nagualdesign 09:51, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Replacement image

Here's a potential replacement image if we want something simple, one that isn't derived from the original. It contains a Milky way background from here File:Starry Sky (9355703971).jpg, and has a simple blueish rendered bitmap. I spent 5 minutes making it, so if an approach like this is good, I've no problem if someone can do better rendering than me. Like I just dropped the sphere in with MSPaint solid-color transparency, so there's no softness to the edges, except I reduced the resolution a bit. Tom Ruen (talk) 08:10, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
Cool, but looks like a rogue planet; you'd need a Sun in the bakground to give it location and also create a sense of distance. Serendipodous 08:12, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
If I make the phase a bit smaller, the sun and planets can be seen on the right side with real geometry. (right image, no texture on planet). (p.s. Sun magnitude in simulated view -11.5, tiny diameter 1.8", Jupiter +10.0, diameter 0.18"!) I don't think I can do an "artistic" (glaring halo) sun myself. When Mike gives us a real "best orbit" and assumed near aphelion position we actually could show the accurate background stars looking towards the sun. Tom Ruen (talk) 08:22, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
I'm not sure people saw my suggestion above of using an eclipsed Sun rendering a ring from the atmosphere, and specifically gray vs blue because blue is because of methane that no one has discussed that I recall.--Smkolins (talk) 09:22, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
Since Planet Nine is expected to be somewhere near the direction of Orion, looking back from Orion the Sun would appear near Serpens Cauda. If you have software that can accurately render the relative magnitude of the Sun and the Milky Way it would go a long way towards reducing the bullshit. Not showing the Sun, because it is occluded by the planet, would miss an opportunity to show some of the actual science - that the Sun looks less bright when viewed from further away. (Go science!) I can easily render lens flare and other artistic touches if you wish, but I still think it shouldn't go in the infobox. nagualdesign 09:32, 20 February 2016 (UTC)
I replaced the milky way image above with a more accurate estimated view. Tom Ruen (talk) 22:00, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
@Tomruen: What should the relative brightness of the Sun and Antares be in this picture? Also, Antares seems to have a diameter >1px so how wide should the Sun be? nagualdesign 01:16, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Antares is magnitude 0.96, while the sun would be about -11.6, or about 576 times brighter. The background itself was earth-bound, so light scattering involved. You might try making a sun pixel area 576× bigger than Antares, or 24× larger diameter. If we say Antares is 2 pixels across, then the sun would be 48 pixels, while my symbolic star is close at 53 pixels point-to-point. ... I tried a "real star" (with diffraction spikes) inserted for the sun, ~25 pixels in diameter. Tom Ruen (talk) 01:27, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
p.s. ALSO, a friend with less astronomy backgound suggested I overlay constellation lines to help people see Scorpius and other constellations in view. I had no problem with that or other helpful labels like "Sun"!. Tom Ruen (talk) 01:34, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
p.s. I saw an article [3] on P9 with a different image, but a reverse google search connects it to a rogue planet PSO J318.5-22 like [4]. Tom Ruen (talk) 02:17, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Not too worried about the comparison with a rogue planet. But everyone expects it to have an atmosphere so a fuzzier crescent seems better. Just not a blue one. I basically like the one on the left.--Smkolins (talk) 03:40, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
I don't have a good simulation of low-phase clouds, although I could soften it. (Here's an image [5] of Uranus in small phase from Voyager in 1986, or Neptune from 1989 [6], and you can't really see fuzziness of clouds on the sphere edge.) Here's one more version, with labeling: File:Planet_nine_artistic_plain_labeled.png Tom Ruen (talk) 04:00, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
I've taken the liberty of updating the image. I started with a slightly different but higher quality star map, which didn't quite cover the same area of sky as your image, so I had to move the Sun slightly. (Artistic license, right?) I rendered the planet as a featureless dark grey-blue. Let me know what you think. (Note: This image should still be removed from the infobox, in my opinion.) nagualdesign 05:27, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Folks, please make sure you identify the source image of the background (and anything else used to make your image). Note Commons:Commons:Deletion requests/File:Planet-Nine-in-Outer-Space-artistic-depiction.jpg where the image was deleted because the background source was not identified. — Huntster (t @ c) 05:55, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
I thought I'd used a NASA image for the background, but can't seem find it again. In the end it was easier to redo the image using File:ESO - Milky Way.jpg for the background, though it's not nearly as detailed. nagualdesign 08:58, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Excellent Nagual, and I'm glad to see the license appropriately matches the ESO image as well. This is also of significant importance. Tomruen, this also applies to File:Planet nine artistic plain labeled.png...the background and star image sources need to be identified in the description page and license of the derivative work changed to match them. — Huntster (t @ c) 20:04, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
Can we use this as a rollover image?
Okay, I've updated the labelled version too, so that they both match. The constellations were based on Celestia, which are a little different than those shown above. Let me know if anything needs changing. Is there any way we can make a rollover using these images? Also, let's not forget that this RfC is still ongoing and the majority seem to agree that the artist's impression ought to be removed from the infobox, if not altogether. Though I have helped Tom to create a professional looking replacement image I stand by my original critique. Since the new image conveys some information I suppose it could go somewhere. nagualdesign 21:42, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
The replacement milky way is very nice, although your first one was better. I found one similar and even more spectacular view of Scorpius File:Guisard - Milky Way.jpg, but alas too small area of sky, and probably the milky way brightness too dominant. I do wish we could reproduce the geometry of the CalTech image, but of course its only one possible view anyway. Tom Ruen (talk) 04:41, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Orbital diagram

There are several orbital diagrams available, some based on the Science Magazine video and some based on the Caltech video (below).

Again, from an encyclopedic point of view I don't think that the stars, which appear to be fake, should feature in the image. Quite why the rest of the background is dark blue I have no idea. My biggest concern is that both videos (Science Magazine and Caltech) begin with a standard, top-down view of the Solar System but then appear to contradict one another. The orbits of the TNOs (excluding Planet Nine) are reversed in one video compared to the other, and which one is correct I have no idea. I suggest that somebody check using Celestia or similar and report back here. I also suggest that we use any of the images other than the starry one, preferably one which shows an actual top-down view of the Solar System. What say you? nagualdesign 03:43, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Somebody should take the starred background one and remove the artsy crap from the svg and leave behind a plain background. Nergaal (talk) 05:44, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
The second image from the left is exactly that, I think. nagualdesign 07:59, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
It has no background, and some users have complained it looks bad in some browsers. If one can put an opaque background on it it would work perfectly well. Nergaal (talk) 16:22, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
If we can confirm that the orientation is correct I'll post a request at the Illustration Workshop. nagualdesign 22:10, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
The swapped orbits could be explained by looking up to vs. looking down on the Solar System. The main difference between the two is the indicated size of Planet Nine's orbit. --JorisvS (talk) 11:28, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
It isn't just a straightforward mirror image. The orbits are a little different. And if you watch the video you'll see the discrepancies (assuming you know what the Solar System looks like). I think the Science Magazine video might have been produced by the art department, rather than it being scientifically accurate. nagualdesign 22:15, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
I'd caution the Caltech video one is not purely fantasy stars, I think. It's hard to place exactly where it starts in the sky but soon it rotates up and comes around to see Orion, Taurus and then on around to see Sagittarius and Scorpio plainly. The thing that is misleading (seemingly) in the Caltech video is the orbital size of PN - the aphelion is less than Sedna's. While possible most of the sources including the original paper all suggest equal-to or farther out than Sedna's. This is a strength of the other video. --Smkolins (talk) 17:21, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
I agree with you that, on face value at least, the Caltech video looks like a proper simulation, with all the stars in the right place. (The Science Magazine video doesn't show any stars.) And if you watch the Caltech video carefully you'll see that Planet Nine's orbit does extend slightly more than Sedna's, but when viewed from 'above' it looks foreshortened due to its orbital inclination. I'm not a fan of fakery but I'll have a go at extending the apparent orbit, if that's what people want. Update: Okay, I've enlarged the orbit. nagualdesign 22:10, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

I like it. To the extent you want to avoid quackery how about finding an orientation where the 6 and P9 are perpendicular to the view and the "correct" background stars are more acceptable? --Smkolins (talk) 16:01, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

p.s. There is no such thing as "correct background stars" in general, at least its all a matter of perspective distance and angular view, and there's no singular viewing distance to define the stars. The only unique perspective would be an orthogonal projection, infinitely far away, infinite magnification, and there are no background stars in such a case. Tom Ruen (talk) 16:20, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
If you look at this video [7] right at the end with the high inclination objects are added it seems to orient perpendicular to the averages of the planes of the 6 and P9 and maximize the view of P9's orbit. Perhaps if that could subtract having the high inclination objects and be the basis of the view you want??--Smkolins (talk) 16:10, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
I looked at the video above, and should adjust my (ps) opinion on correct background stars. The "proper" view distance could be defined to have say a 60-90 deg field of view containing the orbits, which is about what the animation does, and conveniently shows the main constellations including the zodiac of the ecliptic, so showing the stars can be helpful, although a "polar" view is most useful to show shape orbits, and so I might recognize the north ecliptic pole constellations, but not south, if we're looking down. Either way, up or down, the view ought to be labeled! I also see the animation view towards planet 9 is generally towards Orion, which isn't towards the center of the milky way which is talked about as a problem for discovery. Tom Ruen (talk) 20:58, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
if you review the MilkyWay comments and the perspectives in the video you'll see the section of the orbit right after perihelion includes Sagittarius and Scorpio - also refer to the RA/Dec diagram - various cites are in the article when discussing the orbit.--Smkolins (talk) 00:44, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
I can now confirm that the stars in the Caltech video are accurate. Here is a still from the Caltech video with an overlay from Celestia. Note that the FOV is about 42°. I think it's safe to say that the Scientific American Science Magazine video is a product of the art department, as I suspected. I see that somebody has already swapped out the orbital diagram. The thing is, the version with the transparent background has no margins so that it can be used as a frameless image. If we're going to use a thumbnail I recommend using the version with a white background. If the margins are deemed too excessive they can easily be reduced, but to have no margins just looks awkward. nagualdesign 00:09, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
You mean the ScienceMag video being art department. The Scientific American one is exactly the one used by CalTech (and both are credited Credit: "Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC) [Diagram was created using WorldWide Telescope.]" And I agree with the placement in space too. I used Stellarium but quickly honed in on the Vela-to-Volans region. The bright star to the right is Canopus (which was a guess of mine early on.) Based on this I'd not mind using the star background in the picture. But the perspective issue that the P9 orbit is small relative to Sedna is still an unwelcomed detail to my view and I'm unclear why Sedna's orbit has a magenta and red orbit almost superimposed.--Smkolins (talk) 00:44, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
Sorry, yes. I've fixed my error. To be clear, I'm not suggesting that we use a starry background, I was just confirming that the Caltech video and the images based on it are indeed viewed from 'above'. And given that most people's mental model of the Solar System matches this orientation I don't think it should be tilted to afford a better view. It's better to show the orbits of the TNOs and P9 relative to the orbits of the giant planets, as we have here, IMO. Since I modified the image the orbit of P9 is larger than Sedna's. As for the superimposed orbits in the image I provided, the red orbit is from Celestia, the magenta is from Caltech. I couldn't get them to overlay precisely but you get the idea. Update: I've made the orbit of P9 even bigger, and used the same margins in the transparent version as are used in the others. nagualdesign 01:14, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
I'm happy with that current image then. Thanks for all the work!--Smkolins (talk) 01:30, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
Sorry to be picky but we really should use some contrast, the same version already available from the selection above. prokaryotes (talk) 10:44, 6 February 2016 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you mean, but feel free to make further edits. If you mean you'd prefer to see the version with a (plain) black background used in the article, I agree that it's much easier on the eye. nagualdesign 19:31, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

2013 RF98 is not labeled correctly. -- Kheider (talk) 08:58, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Fixed. nagualdesign 09:44, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Conclusion

I thought an uninvolved admin had to close an RfC but according to this we can do it ourselves. So to summarize:

Artist's impression in the infobox
The original image was found to be a copyright infringement and was deleted, and a replacement image was agreed upon. However, by my count 10 people stated that they think the image should be removed versus 5 that think it should stay. So it's far from unanimous but I think the consensus is to remove the image from the infobox.
Orbital diagram
There were found to be errors in the previous image, based on the Science Magazine video, so it has already been swapped out with one of the diagrams more directly based on the Caltech video.

In the process I have ended up recreating both images myself, though that wasn't my original intention! So, even though the artist's impression currently in use is really rather fantastically good looking, can we swap it out now or what? nagualdesign 05:45, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Why? It serves a perfectly good explanitory purpose; hell- it conveys more valid scientific data to the reader than the original CalTech image! Serendipodous 11:04, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
Do you not understand how Wikipedia works? The RfC was carried out in order to garner the opinions of editors. It was discussed at length. Since nobody has added anything to the discussion for several days it can now be concluded. The consensus was to remove the image from the infobox as discussed. You've had plenty of time to ask "Why?", and enough opportunity to sway other editors to vote to retain the image, if you had a good reason to. So in answer to your question, it's because a consensus has been reached. nagualdesign 11:15, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
...Feel free to add to the discussion up there ^^^ and this RfC can remain open for as long as it takes, but at some point it will be brought to a close, and unless you can convince several of the other editors to change their minds, or find other editors who agree with you, it's unlikely to alter the outcome. Sorry. nagualdesign 11:20, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

You essentially invalidated the previous discussion when you changed the image. With a new image, the discussion should be restarted. Serendipodous 12:53, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Which of the editor's opinion(s) written above do you think no longer apply? This isn't just a straightforward vote, it's about taking onboard what other people think, and everyone who has already commented in this RfC has made their rationales quite clear. I have put a lot of energy into trying to do all of this fairly and squarely, I even provided the replacement for the artist's impression that I'm canvassing to have removed, but I have no intention of wasting my energy toing and froing like this forever. I understand that it isn't the outcome you would have wanted but it is what it is. I suggest you try to be collegial and proffer your opinion on which other image you think we should use instead. If nobody objects I am going to insert the animation, but I'll give it a day or two for other people to weigh in, that way we can all continue to play nicely. Yes? nagualdesign 13:35, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
I object to removing the image. I object to you closing the discussion. Jehochman Talk 13:43, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
@Jehochman: Sorry about that. You were actually first on the list of people I notified right at the start of this discussion almost a month ago (see your name right up there at the top?), but since you neglected to respond here in that time and I neglected to notice your absence and go looking for your previous comments when it came to counting votes.. well I guess I dropped the ball there. Feel free to add your two penneth to the discussion above if you wish to discuss it further. (And if you have nothing more to add then I retract my apology for suggesting we close the discussion! ) And if we're back to weight of numbers the score is now 10 to 6 against having this image in the infobox. nagualdesign 14:00, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
Sorry, things sometimes flow downstream before I notice them. This page is rather busy and complex. Most articles about this planet have an image. I don't think it improves the article to remove the image. Jehochman Talk 14:11, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
Bear in mind that some editors would prefer to have the artist's impression removed altogether, as did I in the beginning. Removing the image from the infobox but retaining it within the article is actually a compromise of sorts. When it comes to yes/no questions where opinions are polarized, and 'maybe' isn't an option (the image either stays or it goes), it's best to try to disappoint the smallest number of people, if you will. You can't please everybody. nagualdesign 14:16, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
My default position is that images should remain unless they are wrong or violate any related wiki policies J mareeswaran (talk) 14:27, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
Changes to the guidelines are currently under discussion. nagualdesign 15:24, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

Below we are talking about improvements to the image. I suggest we complete that round of improvements. Before we had a very problematic image that could have influenced people to say, "just chuck it". Once we have a pretty good image, I think we should restart the discussion and say, "Here's an image that doesn't violate copyright and is consistent with the scientific consensus as it currently exists. Should this image be (a) in the infobox, (b) in the article, or (c) removed entirely. " Jehochman Talk 14:44, 1 March 2016 (UTC)

I second this, for the record. I particularly like the wording. Serendipodous 14:52, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
Please read the opinions expressed above. Nobody wanted the image removing on the grounds that it wasn't pretty enough. The reasons given were, generally speaking, that it was unencyclopedic and potentially misleading. Okay, so the stars are no longer "pure fantasy", but the planet remains hypothetical. nagualdesign 15:24, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
This Planet will remain hypothetical for some more time. and in the end if it is confirmed either ways real or imagined we would have to create a new wiki-entry for that and rename this article as Planet Nine Hypothesis J mareeswaran (talk) 16:05, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
I'm open to renaming to something like Planet Nine hypothesis or Planet Nine (hypothesis). I see Mike Brown has the phrase here Why I believe in Planet Nine "...our Planet Nine hypothesis could be wrong..." Tom Ruen (talk) 18:50, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
for now Planet Nine seems fine, once we get more concrete evidence of Planet Nine existing or not existing then we can rename to Planet Nine (hypothesis), I think. J mareeswaran (talk) 11:27, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
Even if it turns out to not exist, changing the name is unnecessary disambiguation. We would only add the (hypothesis) if there was another Planet Nine that was more prominent (which, based on the DAB page, is not currently the case); a hatnote will do fine. Primefac (talk) 14:33, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

Conclusion 2

I move that we close the RFC with no further action. Many comments were made, resulting in substantial improvements. We should consider the state of the article and the image now, and if further steps are needed, start a fresh discussion from where we are now. Jehochman Talk 13:10, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Unless the wind changes this RfC will come to a close (at some point) and the image will be removed as discussed. You will of course be welcome to begin a new round of discussions with a proposal to change the image back. To be honest, you were a little late to the party and don't seem to have made an effort to catch up by reading what people have said, so I find it a little odd that you would first complain that I was attempting to conclude the discussion, then make an attempt to stamp it out yourself. Are you not simply trying to get your own way here in spite of the wishes of other editors? nagualdesign 13:27, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
Dude, all you're doing is setting up for an edit war. At this point I can only assume you are being deliberately obscurantist. The image has been replaced by a far better image. The situation now is not the situation under which the original discussion was had. Others have changed their opinion since the image was replaced. Serendipodous 13:44, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
Conditions have changed sufficiently that the original discussion is no longer relevant, because it's discussion something that was, not something that is. Jehochman Talk 13:45, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
Jesus! Really? I'm doing all of this to deliberately start an edit war?! I couldn't have tried harder to do the opposite. I'll tell you what, since you're so unappreciative of my efforts I'll see if I can fetch an uninvolved admin to make sense of all this. nagualdesign 14:27, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Okay, I've already asked an admin to weigh in, but in order to satisfy the request above... @Jehochman, prokaryotes, Serendipodous, Fut.Perf. ¤, Ephraim33, Nergaal, Neutron, Leitmotiv, Kheider, Wnt, Nowa, Itu, Smkolins, Tom Ruen, Jonathunder, Markbassett, A2soup, Danielklotz, JonRichfield, Aoziwe, Eniagrom, Iamozy, BatteryIncluded, Maproom, Huntster, Chatul, Silvio1973, Jo-Jo Eumerus and Kingofaces43 (phew!), at the risk of labouring the point, may I ask you all once more, should the current artist's impression be removed from the infobox? nagualdesign 16:23, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

What are the artistic embellishments? I see they are speculating an atmosphere with a banded structure, but what are the glowing storms?--Nowa (talk) 12:04, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
It is properly referenced. Serendipodous 16:31, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
Sorry. I might have missed something, but where? The caption ref seems to be to only a blog, and that blog refers to an ice core, with the albedo of Neptune, and at its closest point to the sun potentially bright enough to be seen by a high end backyard telescope, etc. The current image does not seem to comply with such a description. I am happy to be corrected. I would like to see each characteristic / feature of the planet referenced. If someone can put these onto my talk page I will come back with how it might look in the article. Aoziwe (talk) 12:45, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
It is a blog created by the co-author of the proposal, which describes Planet Nine as an ice giant resembling Neptune, gives an approximation of the size of its orbit. 13:01, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
The original image doesn't have much in captions. This copy [9] for instance says "This artistic rendering shows the distant view from Planet Nine back towards the Sun. The planet is thought to be gaseous, similar to Uranus and Neptune. Hypothetical lightning lights up the night side" however I can't find anything about appearance or lightning anywhere else. I'd say there is no speculation on appearance, except for being like a small Neptune ice giant, and so our featureless unlit spherical from behind is a good representation of what we don't know. Tom Ruen (talk) 13:15, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
@JonRichfield: How about this instead? nagualdesign 17:51, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
@Nagualdesign: I can't say that this isn't more informative, and more likely to give something like a realistic sense of scale, so even though the artistic impressions might be more aesthetically impressive, yes, I would have to vote for the likes of this animation. Laypeople do tend to have a very poor sense of the sheer perspective of such matters, and no artistic portrait could convey scale as effectively. JonRichfield (talk) 19:42, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
To be clear, by "yes, I would have to vote for the likes of this animation" do you mean that we should remove the artist's impression from the infobox? nagualdesign 12:27, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
I like the animation but it should go in the body of the article, and it should not play unless the user clicks on it. Self-running animations are a huge distraction on web pages. For the infobox picture, I prefer the big black orb. It shows in a fraction of a second what the article is about. Jehochman Talk 19:52, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
"Self-running animations are a huge distraction on web pages"?! How can they be distracting if they have high-EV for the specific article that they're in? This isn't a banner ad, it's an informative bit of 'video'. Or are you saying that it has low-EV (or no EV)? nagualdesign 12:32, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
When stuff moves on the screen it pulls the user's eye away from whatever they were focusing on. Go research it and show me any study that shows an automatic carousel, self-playing video, or animated gif improved website performance. You can't because there is no such study. Every single rigorous test has shown that placing such objects on web pages damages performance. The best way to use this nice asset would be to convert it into a click-to-play video with a caption explaining what it shows, or else make a static infographic, such as File:Oort cloud Sedna orbit.svg or File:Kuiper belt - Oort cloud-en.svg or File:Gamma ray burst.jpg. Motion isn't a problem when the user initiates it. Jehochman Talk 15:53, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
Ogg file format
First of all, quit with the "Go research it" straw man bullshit. If you make a claim - in this case, that self-running animations are a "huge distraction" - the onus is not on me to prove you wrong, but on you to prove yourself right. It would suffice for you to have simply directed me to these rigorous test which you speak of. To be honest I expect that those tests were specifically about banner advertising. Having said that, I took on board what you were saying (though I completely disagree) and went looking for WP guidelines. As it turns out, animations are indeed discouraged on WP (see Wikipedia:Image use policy#Animated images) so I have converted the gif into ogg format (right). However, having just tested it in the article I quickly reverted it because the implementation is so clunky! I would argue that the gif version provides a far more seamless experience. Let's see what everyone else thinks, I suppose. nagualdesign 14:06, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
I have researched it, and I'm telling you what I found. Here's a tiny taste, "Animations that are repeatedly encountered are roadblocks to content and lengthen the amount of time to complete a task." - https://www.nngroup.com/articles/animation-usability/ If we want people to read the page, a looping animation in the page is a probable distraction. Thank you very much for considering alternatives. I agree the OGG implementation was clunky, but in general that's the right idea if a more elegant implementation can be found. For what little it's worth, my website has two videos, and you can see how I implemented them: www.hochmanconsultants.com Jehochman Talk 14:11, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
The implementation of the videos on your website is very nice, it has to be said, and if WP handled ogg files as well as that I'd have much less to complain about. However, you seem to have some things confused. The website that you linked to pertains to animated UI elements - basically elaborate HTML5 rollovers - which are certainly a barrier to the user. Similarly, you wouldn't want those videos to begin playing automatically because unrequested videos are a pain in the ass, particularly if they have an accompanying soundtrack. And even if you were interested in the content you would likely miss the first few seconds. The Plant Nine animation, on the other hand, is short, silent and has high-EV (as it conveys the geometric basis of the hypothesis). The task that the user is trying to complete here is to learn about Planet Nine, so I'm not sure how the animation can be considered an obstacle to that. nagualdesign 14:54, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
Here's another article worth reading: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/auto-forwarding/. The banner blindness effect is real, as is subliminal distraction. When something moves, the eye leaves whatever it was reading to look at the motion. We don't want to do that to our readers. Paradoxically, if the attention grabber wasn't a threat, people then ignore it has much as they can. Jehochman Talk 15:56, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
I'll have a read of that article shortly. As for banner blindness, I do know what that is (I used to design websites) and is not about banner ads distracting the user from content. In fact it is the opposite; whereby visitors learn to turn a blind eye to flashy, distracting banner advertisements. So are you trying to say that the animation is likely to distract the reader from the rest of the article content, or are you saying that they will ignore the animation?! Please keep in mind that this animation forms part of the content, not some extraneous feature like an advert where the user's attention must be carefully curried if we want to entice them to click. I know your expertise is in online marketing, SEO and the like. I wonder if perhaps you're like the proverbial man with a hammer here, treating everything as though it was a nail? nagualdesign 16:39, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
Okay, I've read that article. Again, I don't see how that applies to animated content on Wikipedia. Do you think that people will ignore it because they think it's probably an advert? Are you saying that the animation itself is not considered content, and watching it is therefore a distraction from reading actual content? nagualdesign 16:54, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Keep, and lets stop the drama. Cheers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 15:44, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Comment. I don't have a strong opinion, but the one thing I'd like seen changed (within the image, rather than by replacement) would be to make the orbit of Neptune look more artificial somehow (e.g. dashed red line, not a white ellipse). Right now it seems to blend in with the Sun, even seems like it is glowing, and the casual reader might not read the note immediately below explaining what it is. Not a vote, just a suggestion. Wnt (talk) 15:52, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
    • An orbit will always be artifical representation, so there's no real alternative than a line. A dashed line adds no helpful information. There's a labeled version here File:Planet_nine_artistic_plain_labeled.png. I'm not against labeling the ellipse in Neptune's orbit. I do find it the most useful addition to the view to get a sense of what 1000AU distance looks like, everything of the regular solar system we know is just a few degrees across. Tom Ruen (talk) 01:49, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Neutral leaning remove. Nergaal (talk) 16:01, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Keep - this is a tempest in teapot. Leitmotiv (talk) 16:56, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Remove, as per my original comments. (Sorry for the delay, I was off-wiki.) Incidentally, I find it grossly inappropriate that certain editors should change the artist's impression and assume that this change invalidates the comments of the many editors who !voted. Some may have opted to remove because they didn't like the original piece, but quite a few (like me) objected in principle to the idea of having an artist's impression at all and elaborated (at length) on our reasons for that position. I don't want to fly in the face of AGF, but it does seem like little attempt was made to understand the reasoning of people who objected. Eniagrom (talk) 18:51, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
Some didn't like the image; some wanted no image at all. With the new image it was necessary to rerun the survey to filter the former out. Serendipodous 18:59, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
That isn't true. Or if I'm mistaken, could you point out which editors didn't like the image? nagualdesign 20:55, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Remove and replace with something at least as informative as the GIF No new reasons necessary. We have an informative calss of alternative to uninformative artwork, It is appropriate to act now. Improvements are possible, but can follow in due course as they become available. JonRichfield (talk) 05:50, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Anyone else got an opinion? Or should we try counting !votes now? nagualdesign 00:36, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Is there an exoplanet in the Solar System?

Another paper on arxiv link discusses possible capture of planet nine from another star. Agmartin (talk) 19:14, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

New object

"the new one is uo3L91; slide from a just-posted talk at the SETI institute. Discovery from OSSOS survey on the CFHT" https://twitter.com/plutokiller/status/713111892672143360 Agmartin (talk) 21:29, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

The talk is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w9N6yABAW4#t=1992 mentioned @33:05. Agmartin (talk) 21:31, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
(Checking their population vs the B&B prediction…) "At the moment, ummm, not very consistent.… We're running one last final check." 32:-33: But yes the new object itself does seem to fit the pattern exactly.--Smkolins (talk) 00:18, 25 March 2016 (UTC)
I'm looking forward to seeing what specifically is 'not very consistent', I do recall the abstract of a recent Gomes paper discussing how adding a massive distant planet yielded a better fit for the number of large semi-major axis centaurs, but not a match. Unfortunately that paper is behind a paywall. Agmartin (talk) 16:31, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
What's the name of the paper? --Smkolins (talk) 21:19, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
The observation of large semi-major axis Centaurs: Testing for the signature of a planetary-mass solar companion The Planet Nine article links a couple of news articles from 2012 describing his presentation of this work at a conference. The paper itself wasn't published until last year. Agmartin (talk) 21:32, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
Just noticed that this paper wasn't cited under that section, added now. Agmartin (talk) 21:37, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
AH yes - the "Laces"…."large semi-major axis Centaurs" --Smkolins (talk) 22:00, 26 March 2016 (UTC)
We don't know what companion they modeled. It would be interesting for them to re-run their model using B&B's specific companion. Perhaps it would produce results that more closely match observations, or would produce an inconsistency. Either way something is learned. Jehochman Talk 14:51, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
I turned the image into the background and did an made a plot of an ellipse in excel which matched to estimate the orbital elements a=749, e=0.934, q=49.4, long of peri 62°. Posting these here only since it's too soon to add these numbers to the table in the actual article. Agmartin (talk) 19:54, 28 March 2016 (UTC)
The new object was discussed in this New Scientist article. Agmartin (talk) 21:20, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Mass extinctions

The University of Arkansas has a recent press release about a paper by Daniel Whitmire published last November in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters, which has been picked up by some in the media and linked to Planet Nine, one example

This had been discussed and rejected back in January.

Jesus, that crank just won't frigging give up. Sorry if I'm a bit POV on this, but I've had it with his PT Barnum tactics. Serendipodous 21:19, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
I seem to recall Batygin talking about the precession of perihelion/orbit of P9 somewhere… and that it wasn't from galactic tides which I guess do affect beyond (no memory but very high AUs like 10s of thousands) but not a dip into the Kuiper Belt or out further. Some disconnect here….--Smkolins (talk) 18:49, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Still cooling

There is a hypothesis that P9 is a captured exoplanet. If that is the case, then "it would still be cooling from its formation with an estimated temperature of 47 K" needs to be conditional on the assumption that P9 was formed at about the same time as the other planets. This assumption could be wrong. Should we clarify that? Jehochman Talk 19:59, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

In the Mustill, Raymond, and Davies paper the encounter occurs between the Sun and another star in its birth cluster. Their formation times should be close enough that after 4.5 billion years the temperatures are effectively the same. For the capture of a planet on a distant orbit to be likely the encounter velocity needs to be small as they are in the birth cluster. For there to be a significant difference in the formation time of the captured planet the encounter would have to occur later with a field star. Then the encounter velocity would be much faster and a capture of a planet on a distant orbit would be much less likely. Agmartin (talk) 20:18, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
Page 3 of the Li & Adams paper gives relative velocities in the birth environment of ~1 km/s and in the current neighborhood of ~40 km/s. Agmartin (talk) 20:25, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Announcement soon?

See: https://twitter.com/plutokiller/status/714919434142416896 1:58 PM - 29 Mar 2016 · Details

Q: Are you hoping to find Planet Nine before week 7?

MB:that's what the syllabus says.

Am I reading this wrong? Nergaal (talk) 03:09, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

I just read it that they will discuss P9 at that point in the syllabus (discovered or not.) Mixed with a chance for hype perhaps when he said "That's what the syllabus says". But of course the search is on….--Smkolins (talk) 18:52, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
You're misreading it. The syllabus says what Brown said in the prior tweet. There is no signal here regarding whether the planet is or will be found at a specific time. Jehochman Talk 12:56, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

It is an online remote class….--Smkolins (talk) 19:01, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

He hasn't updated that part of the class content yet. --Smkolins (talk) 23:53, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Eccentricity

The eccentricity value is currently listed as 0.6 - but 0.7 would better describe (mathematically) the currently listed Aphelion, Perihelion and Semi-major axis values (i.e. 1.7 * 700 = 1190, which is closer to the Perihelion value of 1200 than 1.6 * 700 = 1120). The current value cites reference 3 - but I don't see an eccentricity value offered in this article - only an Aphelion. Should this value be updated?

Thank you for taking an interest in the topic. All these numbers are fuzzy. We used the ones as they appear in the cited papers. As my friend Matt says, no point being precise when you aren't very sure what you are talking about. Jehochman Talk 02:34, 7 April 2016 (UTC)

Whitmire and mass extinctions

dont know if this info is relevant, as im not familiar with the NY post, but ill add the link here just in case...

http://nypost.com/2016/04/06/newly-discovered-planet-could-destroy-earth-any-day-now/

I'm telling ya, it the Death Star!  :-/ Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.BatteryIncluded (talk) 02:32, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
I always knew the Empire and the Borg were in it together. Serendipodous 17:10, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
I'm sure Daniel Whitmire is gratified his research is finally reaching mainstream media. It looks like we do have an article on his work, under a different name, Tyche (hypothetical planet), a much more distant hypothetical object, which actually isn't contradictory towards Planet Nine since they wouldn't interact. Tom Ruen (talk) 15:23, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
The only reason anyone knows about Tyche in the first place is because he took his research to the mainstream media before the WISE results were in. Which of course triggered yet another round of Nibiru hysteria. And then the WISE results came in and it turned out he was wrong. You'd think he'd retire from the public sphere after such a grand humiliation, but apparently not. Can you tell I'm not fond of the guy? Serendipodous 20:53, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
Maybe he is a double agent for the Reptile People hiding behind a comet. I bet I have enough "facts" to start a religious cult.  :-) BatteryIncluded (talk) 22:58, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
I think his name and theory should be mentioned in the article bcs there is some [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/planet-nine-mysterious-planet-is-to-blame-for-mass-extinctions-of-life-on-earth-scientist-claims-a6959776.html more substantial coverege by someone who can link it to his previous claims before someone else just picks a source like this and adds the dinosaurs to the article. WikiHannibal (talk) 17:07, 8 April 2016 (UTC)


So far all I've seen is badly written press releases. If I am going to include info on how an object with a 20,000-year orbit can cause mass extinctions every 27 million years I want some clarity. Serendipodous 17:22, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

I do not know how far the definition of a press release may go, but he published an article in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society as some of the reports inform. Regarding "how an object with a 20,000-year orbit can cause mass extinctions every 27 million years", the source in my first comment above says "it proposes that as the planet moves around the solar system, it passes through the Kuiper Belt — an area of the outer solar system full of icy objects — every 27 million years, knocking comets towards us and into the inner solar system." So, as a theory, I think he should be included. WikiHannibal (talk) 17:45, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
I get that. I am aware of the Nemesis model. What I want to know is, why would it only pass through the Kuiper belt every 27 million years and not every 20,000 years? Serendipodous 17:51, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
I agree there's no apparent connnection. I see Snopes contacted him on the nonsense NYPost article [10] (We contacted Whitmire via e-mail to ask about the Post's claim that all life on Earth could be wiped out in April 2016, and he quickly replied: "No truth to the story at all. That's quite impossible.") Tom Ruen (talk) 18:05, 8 April 2016 (UTC)
When I tell the killer Lizzard People what your cheap newspapers said, they will be upset. It is not our job to question the orbit timing nonsense, but just run in panic. BatteryIncluded (talk) 00:22, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
All serious articles recognize it as a different object, like Bob King "Whitmire and his colleague, John Matese, first published research on the connection between Planet X and mass extinctions in the journal Nature in 1985 while working as astrophysicists at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. They proposed that perturbations from a 10th planet (Pluto was considered a planet back then) could fling a shower of comets from the Kuiper Belt beyond Neptune in Earth’s direction every 28 million years in sync with recorded mass extinctions.... One thing to keep in mind is that their research led them to conclude that Planet X was only 5 times as massive as Earth and 100 times farther from the Sun. This doesn’t jive with the size and mass particulars for Planet Nine inferred by researchers Konstantin Batygin and Michael E. Brown at Caltech earlier this year"
Whitmire's hypothesis is that the orbit of his planet has a large inclination and that the precession of its orbit brings its perihelion into the plane of the Kuiper belt ever 27 million years. For this to work its perihelion needs to be much closer than that proposed for Planet Nine due to it not having an influence on objects with smaller semi-major axes. Agmartin (talk) 20:24, 8 April 2016 (UTC)

This info does not belong in this article; it does, however, belong in Nibiru cataclysm, where I have just added it. I had to employ some slightly whiffy sourcing but I think I can get away with it. Serendipodous 14:30, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Interior

A new BBC News article: Planet Nine's profile fleshed out. Cheers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 14:51, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Great. The standard interior of an ice giant. Which, given that no ice giant's interior has actually been probed, is just as speculative, if not more, than Planet Nine, which we still don't know is an ice giant. Really, BBC? Serendipodous 15:26, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
There is no BBC Journal. BBC News is reporting that the paper was accepted by the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. And yes, it is speculative. CHeers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 15:36, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
It is about this paper (Esther F. Linder, Christoph Mordasini: Evolution and Magnitudes of Candidate Planet Nine, April 2016). They describe assumptions and simulations made with them as prerequisites. This is represented incorrectly in the BBC headline—at least, the following sentence there is correct: "Astrophysicists have outlined what Planet Nine might be like - if indeed it exists". -- Karl432 (talk) 15:51, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
Seems a bit off into a speculation of a speculation to me. I'd say just use it to call P9 an "ice giant" and leave it at that - or more use it in a context of what the Characteristics/Size section about what surveys exclude or don't in terms of size or visibility per size. --Smkolins (talk) 22:49, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
I think there's actually three levels of speculation. (1) There is probably a tenth planet. If this is the case, then (2) it is probably an ice giant. If this is the case, then (3) it probably has an interior like this. In any case, I agree that it's too much to elaborate on the supposed planet's hypothetical interior beyond saying it is speculated to be an ice giant. A2soup (talk) 22:57, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

I wonder if it would be proper to have a brief section covering popular misconceptions? Perhaps this is better to 'sandbox' rather than ask here or just ask {if so, pardon}. I'm motivated to ask the writers/editors here after watching a bunch of youtube videos that ranged from inaccurate to wildly inaccurate - often, but not always, with a religious influence. I'd argue, or suggest, that the sort of misinformation and more let's say non-scientific assesments warrant some mention just because "Planet X" is so pervasive online. There are a number of good pop-science as well as more technical 'debunking' articles from quite reliable sources online. Cheers! 2601:196:4A01:B620:D8FE:2539:EDAB:1158 (talk) 03:14, 14 April 2016 (UTC)2601196Gacrux

There's already an article on that. Serendipodous 06:12, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
We should briefly identify the idiocy and explain why it is idiotic. The latest Nibirh news cycle sent 50,000 visitors to this article. We should take advantage of the opportunity to inform them. Jehochman Talk 12:05, 14 April 2016 (UTC)
I added a link to the article in a hatnote. Serendipodous 12:12, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

Cassini

See this. http://arxiv.org/abs/1604.03180 Additionally, Brown very much likes Fienga's work. JPL did not debunk these papers. Cassini isn't experiencing orbitals anomalies. It is the entire Satutn system that is very slightly perturbed by P9. Please discuss with me before removing good content. The paper linked here should also be included. Very brilliant analysis. Jehochman Talk 23:04, 20 April 2016 (UTC)

Hello. I did the revert before seeing your post. Yes, their claim is that they used ranging data from Cassini to deduct that Saturn has orbit perturbations. I will revert my self and let the astronomers figure it out. A gentle reminder that the paper has not been peer-reviewed yet. Cheers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 23:52, 20 April 2016 (UTC)
What JPL is debunking are all the pop media articles that say P9 is yoinking Cassini around. No it isn't. But it does subtly bend space time to throw Saturns orbit off a few 10s or 100s of meters from where the most sophisticated models of the solar system would place it. We know this because we have very precise range finding to Cassini. The new paper I just referenced has better math and strengthens the original finding. P9 is now constrained to be in the viscosity of Cetus plus or minus about 20 degrees of right Ascension and declination. It will be imaged before Christmas. The main delay is that P9 is currently in the direction of the sun. We can't observe it for a few months. Then it will be found. Jehochman Talk 02:41, 21 April 2016 (UTC)
I added JPLs point of view. However, they are just waving their hands. I would not trust them until they show me the math to explain why the Fientga paper is wrong (as well as Holman). Jehochman Talk
Did you perhaps mean vicinity rather than viscosity of Cetus? Nyth63 03:57, 21 April 2016 (UTC)
I meant viscosity. Cetus is a sea monster, after all. Jehochman Talk 11:04, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Resonant objects

New paper on arXiv Commensurabilities between ETNOs: a Monte Carlo survey

A quote "We find that the commensurability patterns present in the known ETNO population resemble those found in the main and trans-Neptunian belts. Although based on small number statistics, such patterns can only be properly explained if most, if not all, of the known ETNOs are subjected to the resonant gravitational perturbations of yet undetected trans-Plutonian planets." Agmartin (talk) 16:53, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

From the conclusions ...
  • The clustering in orbital parameter space observed (Statistical outliers do exist) for the heliocentric orbits of the known ETNOs is also present when considering their barycentric orbits. In particular,
  • e clumps about 0.81±0.06, i about 20◦±8◦,
  • Ω about 134◦±72◦,
  • and ω about −26◦±49◦.
  • A number of known ETNOs may be trapped in the 5:3 and 3:1 mean motion resonances with a putative Planet Nine with semimajor axis ∼700 au.
They also discuss possibility of a planet 8.5 & 8.7 ??!! between Neptune & Planet Nine

Another example of the potential implications of our findings arises when we focus on 2003 HB57, 2015 SO20, 2005 RH52, (445473) 2010 VZ98 and 2013 GP136, the first two could be in a 3:2 resonance with a hypothetical planet at a = 213 au, with the other three in a 5:3 resonance with the same planet

a similar analysis focusing on 2003 HB57, 2013 GP136, (82158) 2001 FP185 and 2002 GB32 is compatible with a hypothetical planet at a = 329 au considering resonances (3/1)(5/9)=5/3∼1.66.

J mareeswaran (talk) 14:24, 22 April 2016 (UTC)
This type of analysis is bogus. Science is forming a theory that explains what you see and usefully predicts something else. It' always possible to find a pattern that fits the data, but unless that pattern can predict something new, it is meaningless. A classic example of this is the Titius–Bode law. Jehochman Talk 12:55, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
Right. We are watching the normal progression of several scientific studies and there is going to be the normal back-and-forth in publications. I strongly advice to wait for a major substantial development and not try to include all possible scenarios (hypotheses/models), as it is a work in progress. Cheers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 13:40, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

N-body experiments

They have been busy, another article posted to arXiv Dynamical impact of the Planet Nine scenario: N-body experiments Agmartin (talk) 16:38, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

Interesting, Planet Nine is more like to survive if it has a companion:
"Planet Nine, if it exists, moves in an elongated orbit that may be vulnerable to long-term secular perturbations resulting from the Galactic tide or discrete events like close encounters with passing stars. In this context, a lone Planet Nine may not be able to survive in its present orbit for the age of the Solar system (see Li & Adams 2016), but a planet within a planetary group has better chances to be long-term stable. Therefore, if Planet Nine exists, it is probably not alone" Agmartin (talk) 17:26, 22 April 2016 (UTC)
I think I see how that works "the terrestrial planets maintain their stability by sharing and weakening the secular perturbation from Jupiter", I found this article with some plots of the eccentricities of Venus and Earth A survey of near-mean-motion resonances between Venus and Earth, the eccentricities of Venus and Earth are coupled causing them to oscillate. So if Planet Nine had a companion its eccentricity would oscillate which I guess diminishes the effects of perturbations of a passing star. Agmartin (talk) 17:45, 22 April 2016 (UTC)
There are too many unknowns to make good predictions. If P9 is out there, no reason other, especially smaller, massive objects might not be out there too. Nobody knows that P9 was there when the solar system formed. It might have been tossed out there at some point, or it might have been snatched from interstellar space or a passing star. Even low probability things happen occasionally. We will have to wait for more data. I don't think we should load the article with loose speculation of little predictive value. Jehochman Talk 17:47, 22 April 2016 (UTC)
I agree, though I wonder how long it will be before one of the publishers that linked extinctions to Planet Nine will have an article about its alleged companion(s). Agmartin (talk) 18:48, 22 April 2016 (UTC)
Agreed and still very speculative - such a planet would also cause perceptible influences on the ETNOs. Much more complex to figure out I'd hazard. BTW just to throw things out I had the idea that perhaps P9 could account for the Kuiper cliff but that it had been perturbed into the present (speculative) orbit which then could be modeled with a decaying corralling of the cliff and the arising of the resonances of the ETNOs. Mind I'm just throwing that out there. Going back to the broad scale we do have List_of_nearest_stars_and_brown_dwarfs#Future_and_past to look at.--Smkolins (talk) 17:25, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
One thing that I had thought about was that P9 spent some time in a Kozai resonance with one of the other planets giving it temporarily a lower perihelion, but it is probably too distant for that to happen (and it sounds too much like Whitmire's idea). In a 2011 paper by Batygin, Brown, and Fraser, it was suggested that the small mass and the cutoff was due to the formation process requiring threshold density of dust which was reached only rarely beyond 35 AU, and I guess not at all beyond the cliff. Agmartin (talk) 20:11, 23 April 2016 (UTC)
but as I understand it the whole idea of a cliff has to be created anyway because of Neptune's outward migration pushing along what isn't scattered. The result piles things up on other points in the belt but nothing to cut away the thinning outer part - and the 2011 paper was in the midst of Nice model development and before the Grand Tack. Now maybe the pile up superseded the overall disk content, thinning to the point it wasn't there and the edge is just as far as Neptune pushed stuff. But that doesn't seem sound from what I see in such models. --Smkolins (talk) 02:08, 24 April 2016 (UTC)
found a paper supporting Neptune not being responsible for the cliff - it was jumped part way out but not enough to form the outer edge of the belt. --Smkolins (talk) 19:06, 24 April 2016 (UTC)
There was the push-out model proposed by Levison and Morbidelli in 2003, which may be what you recall, this was to create all of the kuiper belt but doesn't appear to produce many low eccentricity objects. Last year the OSSOS mentioned finding some low eccentricity, low inclination objects beyond Neptune's 2:1 which probably means Neptune isn't responsible for the cliff. Agmartin (talk) 21:07, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
or least not entirely... Agmartin (talk) 21:07, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
found an older paper that favors Jupiter tossing a gas giant out vs Saturn - Could Jupiter or Saturn Have Ejected a Fifth Giant Planet? --Smkolins (talk) 22:05, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
This one is about the Nice model, distinguishing whether Jupiter or Saturn could eject an ice giant without disrupting the orbits of the outer-most regular satellite. If this result was applied to P9 it would mean that if it was Saturn that ejected it then Iapetus must have formed sometime later. Agmartin (talk) 17:59, 4 May 2016 (UTC)
Not found the paper behind this yet… another P9 paper: [11] --Smkolins (talk) 22:19, 3 May 2016 (UTC)
Currently reference 93 Interaction Cross Sections and Survival Rates for Proposed Solar System Member Planet Nine Agmartin (talk) 17:56, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

Mysterious Gravitational Tug on Orbiter May Help Find Planet Nine

Just saw this in the news:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mysterious-gravitational-tug-on-orbiter-may-help-find-planet-nine/

The Cassini–Huygens has had an unexplained glitch in its orbit. Turns out it can be totally explained if Planet Nine is 600 AU out toward the constellation Cetus. Zyxwv99 (talk) 21:32, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

The original paper is citation #68 presently. :-) --Smkolins (talk) 00:30, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
Oh sure, as soon as I make a comment here, you people time-travel and retroactively re-write the article. Zyxwv99 (talk) 02:13, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
The new article has good extra details. I was looking at this which might be useful. http://m.livescience.com/54308-is-planet-nine-tugging-nasa-saturn-probe.html Jehochman Talk 02:15, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
The Death Star is a coming! Repent! :-0 BatteryIncluded (talk) 02:25, 7 April 2016 (UTC)
Or not? [12] “An undiscovered planet outside the orbit of Neptune, 10 times the mass of Earth, would affect the orbit of Saturn, not Cassini,” said William Folkner, a planetary scientist at JPL. Folkner develops planetary orbit information used for NASA’s high-precision spacecraft navigation. “This could produce a signature in the measurements of Cassini while in orbit about Saturn if the planet was close enough to the sun. But we do not see any unexplained signature above the level of the measurement noise in Cassini data taken from 2004 to 2016.”
I believe the press release is correcting a misunderstanding in some news stories about what deviations are being used in Fienga's paper. My understanding is that Fienga is using the Cassini tracking data to determine a more precise positions of Saturn's than are possible using earth-based telescopes. It is these, and not Cassini's orbit relative to Saturn, that are being used to estimate the location of Planet Nine. Agmartin (talk) 19:19, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
Agreed. --Smkolins (talk) 22:44, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
"But we do not see any unexplained signature above the level of the measurement noise in Cassini data taken from 2004 to 2016.” This seems like a direct contradiction of Fienga's results - he's saying that there are no unexplained deviations in any Cassini data (whether about Cassini itself or Saturn) that rise above measurement noise. A2soup (talk) 22:53, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
Hmmm - well in detail the paper is using the "INPOP model" and not just the Cassini positions - and it isn't clear if the contradiction is between placing Cassini in the Saturn environment vs Cassini and the whole Saturn environment being out of position. I don't think P9 would be proposed to off set just Cassini. --Smkolins (talk) 23:22, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
Then again the rest of that article does speak of the whole situation vs the sun - but at one point it speaks of noise and the other it speaks of "our current models": “Although we’d love it if Cassini could help detect a new planet in the solar system, we do not see any perturbations in our orbit that we cannot explain with our current models,” said Earl Maize, Cassini project manager at JPL. (emphasis added) --Smkolins (talk) 23:32, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
If there are no perturbations that fits with the more recent Brown and Batygin paper where they used the Feinga paper only to eliminate one area. The area the Fienga paper was pointing to may be included in those with archived data. Agmartin (talk) 18:00, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

Another estimate based on Cassini link "When we combine our constraints from the Cassini data with the dynamical constraints from Batygin and Brown (2016) and Brown and Batygin (2016), our preferred region is centered approximately at (RA, Dec) = (40°;-15°) and extends ~20° in all directions." Agmartin (talk) 18:08, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

This appears to be on the boundary between Eridanus and Cetus. Wasn't Fienga's location near there? Agmartin (talk) 18:16, 13 April 2016 (UTC)
Yes, it's the same location, but the new paper has better math. Brown likes the new paper. [13] Jehochman Talk 21:55, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

letter to editor

another new entry - Letter to the Editor: Orbital clustering of distant Kuiper Belt Objects by hypothetical Planet 9. Secular or resonant, by H. Beust --Smkolins (talk) 00:51, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Interesting plots, I'm not sure but I think they are like contour plots of the Hamiltonian and the parameters of an objects orbit follows the curves as it evolves. So one of these curves shows how the alignment of an orbit changes as the eccentricity oscillates taking its perihelion in and out of Neptune's influence. Agmartin (talk) 17:41, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
I had the thought that the survey hunting for P9 might uncover a significant number of ETNOs and each need their own characterizations and pre-discovery images and the whole suite would be further comment on the evidence if the placements of various orbits is randomly aligned like this or not. Lot's might be turning up…. --Smkolins (talk) 21:21, 10 May 2016 (UTC)
No new ETNO's listed here yet. I did see one night of observations (this probably only provides a rough distance of the objects spotted) on the Subaru telescope's schedule for Mike Brown back in March. The OSSOS only reported their findings from the first quarter of observations (in 2013) last year so there may be some others yet to released, maybe this fall. I wonder if PanSTARRS could extend their observations to fainter magnitudes... Agmartin (talk) 20:11, 12 May 2016 (UTC)
Brown searched Leo and part of Ursa. Given what's now known, this was probably the wrong area. The areas currently searchable are already excluded. The right area is on Earth's the sunny side at the moment. Some time around August or September it will be searchable. It may take a couple months after that to get findings. Jehochman Talk 21:15, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Another N-body simulation

Thanks, I've been looking forward to this one since it was hinted at in Michele Bannister's SETI talk. Agmartin (talk) 16:56, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
If I read that correctly, they mean distinctly different distribution of TNOs from one without a ninth planet, not (as could be interpreted from their title) compared to the observed distribution of TNOs. --JorisvS (talk) 19:17, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

update by Madigan...

The update is one search of a small section of the remaining area. I've not found a publication on that - it is mentioned about 15:14 and seems to be the rough region near Cetus that Holman and Payne had proposed earlier. She also mentions another recent publication that mentions planet 9 - the Holman and Payne paper already included about Pluto. The update in terms of her own paper is wrestling with some new qualities of her own hypothesis - that the self-gravitation of objects should take off quickly (12 orbits she said) and not depend on how many objects are involved, as well as generating clusters of objects (friends or friend groups she calls them i think) sharing orientation in physical space. --Smkolins (talk) 10:34, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

Planet Nine as captured Exoplanet

New high perihelion objects

New article by Sheppard,Trujillo, and Tholen on arXiv Beyond the Kuiper Belt Edge: New High Perihelion Trans-Neptunian Objects With Moderate Semi-major Axes and Eccentricities

Figure 1 includes five new objects with semi-major axes beyond 150 AU including two with perihelia greater than 40 AU and semi-major axes of ~300 AU and one with perihelion of 36 AU and semi-major axis of ~1500 AU.

I'm guessing they are to be the subjects of an upcoming paper. Agmartin (talk) 19:19, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Observational constraints on the orbit and location of Planet Nine in the outer solar system

Updated version now on arXiv. Some of the changes, bold new, old in parenthesis.

  • Abtract "Allowed orbits, which confine Kuiper belt objects with semimajor axis beyond 380 AU (230 AU), have perihelia roughly between 150 and 350 AU (200 and 350 AU), semimajor axes between 380 and 980 AU (300 and 900 AU), and masses of between 5 and 20 (approximately 10) Earth masses."
  • 2nd paragraph on page 2. Changed from 6 to 7 aligned objects, the added object appears to be (148209) 2000 CR105.
  • 5th paragraph on page 2. The range of semimajor axis covered for Planet Nine is extended to 2000 AU and number of simulations increased from 192 to 320.
  • Second metric added on page 3. Simulations with 99% probability of having at least 1 of 15 objects with 100 < a < 200 AU and a perihelion q > 42 AU are ruled out. This eliminates some with P9 having a lower semimajor axis and higher eccentricity. Figures 2 reflects this change. Figure 3 shows results for M9 = 20 Me instead of 1 Me.
  • Conclusion. Notes apparent alignment of argument of perihelion of 16 KBOs with largest semimajor axis are not yet captured in models, though part of this may be due to observational biases. Each additional object with a > 100 AU (a > 230 AU) tightens the observational constraints on location of Planet Nine. Agmartin (talk) 20:24, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

New icy objects

No data yet just this tease from Michelle Bannister (part of the OSSOS team) on twitter:

"All the #dpsepsc abstracts in. With >500 new icy worlds in hand, feels great to have the big project hitting its stride & bringing results"

dpsepsc refers to the the joint 48th Division for Planetary Sciences (DPS) and 11th European Planetary Science Conference (EPSC) meeting in Pasadena, CA, USA from October 16-21, 2016. Agmartin (talk) 21:41, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Question about the period

since the orbit is presumably so eccentric (and it reaches towards the Oort cloud), would it be possible that there is a timing of comets proportional to the orbital period? Nergaal (talk) 00:44, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

The orbits of most of the observed comets pass inside Jupiter's. I suspect Jupiter's influence would quickly smear out any clustering of their periods. Planet Nine might have some effect on the delivery of high-inclination, high-perihelion comets like it is predicted to have on the centaurs. Agmartin (talk) 17:23, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
In regards to the Oort cloud, this logarithmic distance diagram, File:PIA17046_-_Voyager_1_Goes_Interstellar.jpg suggests the Oort close as close as 1000AU, similar to proposed Planet Nine's aphelion. So it might be a misrepresentation but you'd think planet Nine could disrupt inner oort cloud objects every orbit into slowing some into lower orbits and generally around the same period, and even ellipse orientation. But I imagine statistically most of them would still be "unattached", staying far above Neptune, and all too small to see so far from the sun. Tom Ruen (talk) 18:43, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

I don't get this line

"Simulations indicate that the mass in high-perihelion and moderate-semi-major-axis orbits (q > 37 AU, 50 < a < 500 AU) is increased threefold if there is a distant planet in a circular orbit and tenfold if it is in an eccentric orbit."

Does that added mass include the mass of the planet, or just the mass of the objects out there? Serendipodous 16:52, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

I don't see how it can include the mass of the massive ice giant that is Planet Nine. All minor bodies combined have far less mass than Earth. --JorisvS (talk) 17:31, 18 July 2016 (UTC)
The referenced article used mass in its abstract though they also refer to the fraction of object and number of objects in the text, I've change this in the article to clarify. Agmartin (talk) 18:03, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Companions to Planet Nine

I see the additional planets proposed by de la Fuente Marcos in Dynamical impact of the Planet Nine scenario: N-body experiments is getting some coverage, for example with comments by Michael Brown. This was discussed here when it hit arXiv but has since been removed. Agmartin (talk) 22:16, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

Archived thread is here. --Ørjan (talk) 10:58, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

New one by de la Fuente Marcos Finding Planet Nine: apsidal anti-alignment Monte Carlo results still claiming more than one additional planet. Agmartin (talk) 19:57, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

2015 RR245

What about 2015 RR245 who possibly throws a monkey wrench in all this, at least according to some? Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 18:08, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Objects with semi-major axis less than 150AU are not influenced by Planet Nine as per B&B's simulation / hypothesis J mareeswaran (talk) 08:14, 22 July 2016 (UTC)
It is a wild turkey-shoot. Really, we don't have to list all the speculations printed, no matter how brainy they are. BatteryIncluded (talk) 18:17, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
The only thing that stands out about 2015 RR245 is its among the top 20 brightest by absolute magnitude. I don't see why Ethan Siegel is connecting it to planet nine, its semimajor axis is too small. He appears to be claiming that since new objects are being discovered that somehow this indicates there is a possible observer bias, but looking at the initial P9 paper you can see the perihelion locations of the smaller semimajor axis objects are distributed across the sky. Agmartin (talk) 18:51, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
[14] Quote: “I know that it’s going to fit in at least with most of the story,” Dr. Brown said. “It’s exactly in the direction it should be for Planet Nine.”
That quote does not refer to 2015 RR245, but to another object in the same survey. Tbayboy (talk) 13:39, 17 July 2016 (UTC)
That's not my reading of the quote. When you say "it", logically it must be talking about the primary "it" of the article. Tom Ruen (talk) 18:52, 17 July 2016 (UTC)
The previous paragraph changes the context for the "it": "Dr. Bannister’s dwarf planet is not distant enough to be affected by Planet Nine, but at least one of the 600 objects tracked by the survey is.". Tbayboy (talk) 03:31, 18 July 2016 (UTC)
Darn, that's not written very clearly. So that must be what Dr. Bannister calls ou3L91 Tom Ruen (talk) 03:48, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

High inclination centaur

Found one on MPC's list not in B&B, orbit may have been updated recently. 2014 LM28 Inclination 84.8°; Semimajor axis 264 AU; Perihelion 16.77 AU Agmartin (talk) 20:56, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

It doesn't appear well aligned with the arcs in fig. 9 a/b, but this may be because only those with semimajor axes greater than 500 AU are well aligned and plotted. Agmartin (talk) 21:08, 18 July 2016 (UTC)
2014 LM28 is a Uranus-family Ejected Centaur, with its primary gravitation influence (as one would assume) being that of Uranus. While some objects, such as 1996 PW, have orbits that don't take them near any major inner planets, this one on the other hand can be explained by a close approach in the last few thousands or millions of years. exoplanetaryscience (talk) 05:31, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for pointing that out. Agmartin (talk) 19:19, 23 July 2016 (UTC)

FAC

One of you guys should start a FAC. @Agmartin: @J mareeswaran:. Nergaal (talk) 01:28, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

Tease

Something new?

"Oh Planet Nine, I keep finding new things that you do. Never realized a giant planet so far away could cause so many ripple effects #vague" https://twitter.com/plutokiller/status/758766720601292800 Agmartin (talk) 20:26, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

No. He wrote: #vague BatteryIncluded (talk) 23:36, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

New entry at findplanetnine

origins

Konstantine Batygin discusses possible origins, and points out a potential conflict between Planet Nine being scattered outward by Jupiter while the gas disk is still present with it remaining on a bound orbit. Agmartin (talk) 19:28, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

New Paper: Solar Obliquity Induced by Planet Nine

https://arxiv.org/abs/1607.03963 - Planet Nine can explain the sun's 6 degree axial tilt relative to the rest of the planets. Jehochman Talk 04:33, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Planet 9 solves everything, it would appear. Next they'll find it cures cancer. However, this is a pre-print and the reason why arxiv is strongly discouraged (because it hasn't actually been reviewed for publication). Primefac (talk) 17:06, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
Yeah, but the authors are pretty reliable people, so I don't think this is dubious. The paper itself identifies many caveats. P9, if is exists, has way more angular momentum (radius x momentum) than everything else in the solar system combined, so it would make sense that it would have an impact like this. Any gravitational binding between P9 and other bodies would tend to transfer angular momentum. I find the claims to be very plausible. Jehochman Talk 17:15, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
Oh, of course, I probably should have used some <sarcasm> tags or something. I don't doubt the credentials or the work of the researchers, I guess I was just less-than-surprised that P9 has answered yet another great mystery of the Solar System. Primefac (talk) 17:30, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
Someday a probe will visit P9 and find all the missing left socks. Jehochman Talk 17:59, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
Therefore, there must be a P10 that harbors all the right socks, and cures impotence. I love science! BatteryIncluded (talk) 18:06, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Another paper making same claim The inclination of the planetary system relative to the solar equator may be explained by the presence of Planet 9 Agmartin (talk) 17:25, 19 July 2016 (UTC)

Article discussing Dong Lai's version of the result. Agmartin (talk) 20:44, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

To put all this in perspective, for P9 to get stolen from a passing star or to get ejected into its proposed orbit requires a strong external gravity source to have passed near the solar system. This external perturber could also affect the other planets, making any analysis of the tilt unclear. I posed a question to an expert and haven't heard back whether P9 might be a captured rogue planet. This scenario would not involve that external perturber. I'm not sure how the torque and axis alignment analysis has any meaning unless it is attributable to P9, not other perturbers. Jehochman Talk 21:40, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Would everyone be OK if I took this to FAC?

I think it's ready, minus a peer review. But I'd rather have credit shared with the people who actually worked on the article, so if I went through with it would you guys mind being listed as co-nominators? Serendipodous 14:03, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

@J mareeswaran, Kheider, JorisvS, and Smkolins: Nergaal (talk) 15:24, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

The article is missing that picture showing likely orbits and areas already surveyed that B&B have in their blogs. [This https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DkW_wt_yxXM/VuswhR2L5rI/AAAAAAAANrA/YWT3z3dCJ8wN_YbebgmhCqW9LGK-r0zKw/s1600/fig10.png] Nergaal (talk) 17:28, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

Are these copyrightable? They shouldn't be too hard to transcribe with the right software, which I don't have. Serendipodous 18:38, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
Yes, I would say the image is copyrightable. Image is certainly not PD-ineligible (quite complicated in nature), and while pure data is not copyrightable, I feel certain that consideration and effort went into the arrangement of the image's data. — Huntster (t @ c) 07:21, 21 August 2016 (UTC)
I think if you schematize just the declination image, showing just the range vs Milky Way, it would be ok to have. Nergaal (talk) 22:17, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
You would have to take the original data, which is not copyrightable, and make a new image based on it. That specific image above, and its component parts, wouldn't be acceptable. — Huntster (t @ c) 05:44, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
Making a paint picture with approximative regions (using bands and recrangles) is copyrightable? Nergaal (talk) 10:02, 30 August 2016 (UTC)
How about this svg?
In a word, Nergaal, yes. Anything that is complicated enough to not just be a random collection of shapes and colours is copyrightable. Even stuff made in Paint ;) Primefac (talk) 21:47, 30 August 2016 (UTC)


sounds good to me Agmartin (talk) 19:40, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
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