we have 8 planets now? whats planet X?

Question

i havent been keeping up to date on the issues

Answer 1

planet X "WAS" pluto before it was discovered.

but now its called a "dwarf planet"

nowdays after plutos discovery, planet X is referred to as the search for the next possible planet in our solar system, which we actually found. Named Eris. but, the search is still on, looking for the NEXT planet X.

Answer 2

It doesn't exist.

The seventh planet, Uranus, was discovered in 1781 by an astronomer named Herschel. (He wasn't the first person to observe it, but he was the first to figure out it was indeed a planet, like Jupiter or Saturn, and not a star or comet as others had thought.)

After watching this new planet few a few decades, astronomers found something amiss. Uranus's orbit didn't quite follow the expected path, it had a wobble. So it was surmised that there must be another planet out there, beyond the orbit of Uranus, affecting it by gravity. They did some calculations and estimated where and how far away this other planet would be... and lo! there was the eighth planet Neptune.

But something was still off. Neptune didn't account for all of Uranus' wobble. So some began to speculate there was still another planet, Planet X, even farther out than Neptune. Some more calculations were made. And by pure, stupid coincidence, Pluto was found in the spot astronomers had expected to find Planet X.

It wasn't long before they realized Pluto could not be Planet X. It's too small, and it's mass could not account for the behavior of Uranus or Neptune, so the search for Planet X continued.

Until 1979. That's when NASA's Voyager probe made a close pass by Neptune and got a very accurate measurement of its mass. It was discovered then that Neptune was much heavier than was expected. Heavy enough that it could account for 100% of Uranus' deviations. So there is no Planet X. There never was.

Answer 3

There is no Planet X.
Planet X was the name given to a hypothetical planet thought to orbit beyond Neptune (this was before Pluto had been discovered).

Scientific basis of the Planet X hypothesis was broadly discounted in the early 1980s and today no significant portion of the scientific community believes it to exist.

Although Pluto was discovered as a result of the search for Planet X, it is not considered Planet X. Neither is Eris, even though it was at one point considered for reclassification as a planet under a proposal outlined by the International Astronomical Union.

In popular culture, "Planet X" has become a generic stand-in term for an undiscovered planet in the solar system. Its use by scientists, however, is exclusively in reference to planetary orbital discrepancies.

Answer 4

Yes, 8 "major planets" - they had to draw the line somewhere, and this was a sensible one. Pluto has a very eccentric orbit that actually crosses Neptune's sometimes, among other irregularities, and is actually a Kuiper Belt object - of which there are thousands way out there past Neptune.

Planet X was an imagined twin of Earth in the same orbit but exactly opposite the sun so it could never be seen. This is ridiculous for several reasons, the biggest one being that it would easily reveal itself by its effects on the orbits of the nearby planets - and now we have space probes that could actually see it if it were there. [Okay, there's that other Planet X supposedly beyond Neptune too.]

Answer 5

hey,

Planet X is a large hypothetical planet beyond Neptune. The scientific basis of the Planet X hypothesis was broadly discounted in the early 1980s and today no significant portion of the scientific community believes it to exist.

The "X" mentioned in the name represents an unknown and is pronounced as the letter, as opposed to the Roman numeral for ten. At the time of its conception there were eight known planets in the solar system, its existence, first as a ninth planet, and then from 1930 until its demise as a tenth, was postulated on the basis of apparent discrepancies in the orbits of the gas giants, especially those of Uranus and Neptune. Those discrepancies have largely been resolved by modern measurement, removing the basis for Planet X.

Although Pluto was discovered as a result of the search for Planet X, it is not considered Planet X. Neither is Eris, even though it was at one point considered for reclassification as a planet under a proposal outlined by the International Astronomical Union.

Hope I Helped

Answer 6

Depends on your point of reference.
Planet X always represented the unknown tenth planet, lying beyond Pluto, suspected to exist because of perturbations. It was coincidentally ironic that X stands for unknown and also for 10 in Latin numerals.

Planet X, according to Daffy Duck (Duck Rogers in the 24th1/2 Century) was the planet where the shaving cream atom was found. He found it by following the planets alphabetically from Planet A. Look it up, it is a very funny cartoon.

Answer 7

mYes. We have 8 planets now. Pluto was reclassified as a "dwarf" planet and is not a planet anymore. Planet X was a mysterious planet that supposedly lurked in the dark, and was called "X" because of the enigma and because of the number 10 in roman system, however it was never found, instead, several minor bodies were discovered.

Answer 8

We don't need planet X. We lost one planet instead.
There used to be 9 planets :
Mercury
Venus
Earth
Mars
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune
Pluto

Last year, the definition of a planet changed and Pluto lost its membership.

Planet X was a name given to the 10th rock to be found outside of Pluto, now that it has been found, its name is Eris.

Following the change in definition, a new term was coined, "dwarf planets".
Pluto now falls into this category, as well as Eris.
Ceres, a rock in the asteroid belt was also admitted as a dwarf planet.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planet

Answer 9

u didnt know this?? i think i heard that scientists, astronomers w/e thought pluto was a planet but then some while ago, they found out it wasnt so now we have 8 planets. i actually found this out from my cousin who was looking stuff up on google. also i thought they kept making pluto go back and forth like its a planet then not, planet, not etc. but i could be wrong. and isnt planet X just the name for all the unknown planets out there? cuz i mean there could be many many planets out there or "dwarf planets" orw/e but theyre still planets but we just havent discovered all of them n wut not.
this if from what i think i remember about this so i could be wrong

Answer 10

The Niburu. I'm told, that by 2012 it will align itself with the sun and Earth passing so close because of its eliptical orbit which is 3600 a yr. orbilt. Has life that is hostile to Earth on it
may land after the thousands of years of exile and dominate. I heard this and said, oh well. In this yr things will happen. Dark and cryptic it seems to me. Don't really know that's what I've read.