Planet-X' Highly Ludicrous Cover-Story?/Re: Planet X: ...

tholen@AntiSpam.ham wrote:
> Nancy Lieder writes:
>> David Tholen!
> Nancy Lieder!
>
>> You have NO comment on 2001 KX76 being called a REDISH OBJECT,
>
> Why should I comment on it?  Such a word isn't very quantitative.
>
>> which is THPICAL,
>
> I'm unfamiliar with the word "THPICAL".  Try writing in English.
>
>> in the press?  No comment whatsoever,
>
> Well, if you insist, I'll note that the V-R color published in
> IAU Circular 7657 on 2001 July 5 is 0.5 magnitudes with an
> uncertainty of 0.1 magnitudes; note that the V-R color of the
> Sun is 0.365, so this object is redder than the Sun by just
> 0.135 magnitudes, with an uncertainty of 0.1 magnitudes.  There
> are plenty of asteroids redder than that.  Much redder.  Nothing
> particularly unusual about this one.

All post 1992-discovered KBO's, right?

"The red Kuiper Belt Objects - or KBOs, as they are called" ?

The very first one, QB1 ("Smiley"), was oddly rich in red hues compared
to sunlight that illuminates it. See these quotes:

  <http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/red_asteroids_001025.html>
  <...>
*  While some things turn blue when they get really cold, a newly
*  discovered group of frigid
*  solar system objects is decidedly red.
   
   Perhaps they're embarrassed about being so un-neighborly.
   
   The inexplicably red comet-like objects orbit the Sun in the cold
   outer reaches of the solar system in a region known as the
   Kuiper Belt. Compared to their gray kin, the red objects have an
   exclusive hold on the most far-out orbits. 
   
   <snip>   

   The Kuiper Belt, a vast region of space beyond the orbit of Neptune,
   was first proposed in 1951. Some 300 objects have been found in the
*  belt, just in the last decade, and scientists expect the region may be
*  littered with as many as 100,000 objects.
   
*  The red Kuiper Belt Objects -- or KBOs, as they are called -- were
*  first noticed three years ago, their color being significantly redder
   than other KBOs because they absorb more blue light. No one has yet
   figured out exactly what about their composition causes the color
   differences.
   
   Scientists can only "speculate on the nature of the blue absorber,"
   said Stephen Tegler of Northern Arizona University, lead author of a
   paper appearing in the October 26 issue of the journal Nature.
   "Perhaps, the red objects are rich in complex organic molecules."
   
   Solving the puzzle could help scientists learn more about the
   formation of the solar system.
   
   How far is far?
   
*  KBOs travel in non-circular orbits (much like
   Pluto, which is considered a KBO by some scientists). These egg-shaped
*  orbits mean a typical KBO's distance from the Sun can range from 38 to
*  more than 50 AU (1 AU, or astronomical unit, is the distance from
   Earth to the Sun). The point nearest the Sun is called perihelion.
   
   "The objects in our survey are evenly split between red and gray for
   perihelion distances out to 40 AU," Tegler said. "For these objects,
   perihelion distance does not seem to affect the colors of the objects.
   For objects with perihelion distances beyond 40 AU, we only see red
   objects. The reasons for the patterns remain a mystery."

   
  <...>
                                       He assigned the newly discovered
   body a formal, if somewhat drab, name based on the date of discovery:
   he christened it "1992 QB1." (We preferred to call it "Smiley," after
   John Le Carr's fictional spy, but that name did not take hold within
   the conservative astronomical community.)
*  Our observations showed that QB1 reflects light that is quite rich in
*  red hues compared with the sunlight that illuminates it. This odd
*  coloring matched only one other object in the solar system-a peculiar
   asteroid or comet called 5145 Pholus. Planetary astronomers attribute
   the red color of 5145 Pholus to the presence of dark, carbon-rich
   material on its surface. The similarity between QB1 and 5145 Pholus
   thus heightened our excitement during the first days after the
   discovery. Perhaps the object we had just located was coated by some
   kind of red material abundant in organic compounds. How big was this
   ruddy new world? From our first series of measurements, we estimated
   that QB1 was between 200 and 250 kilometers across-about 15 times the
   size of the nucleus of Halley's comet.
   </quote>

   <...>
   other observations by this team and others. Given their estimate of
   the size of 250 km (based on an albedo of 0.04 which is typical of a
   comet nucleus), it was clearly a significant achievement because of
   the very slow proper motion and the dimness of the reflected light
   with a red magnitude of 22.8. The object is somewhat redder than solar
*  light, inconsistent with a surface of pure ice and consistent with
*  dirty ice. Preliminary orbital elements were computed by Brian Marsden
   </qoute>

   <...>
*  In 1992, the first member of the Kuiper Belt was discovered - 1992
   <snip>
   Kuiper Belt Objects (also known as TNOs - Trans-Neptunian Objects, and
   EKBOs - Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt Objects) are believed to be very dark -
   they have albedos of about 0.04. However, despite this low albedo they
*  also exhibit widely differing colours - ranging from a bluish neutral
*  colour to a strong red colour. They also have a wide size distribution
   <snip>
   Many theories have been proposed as to the origin of this colour
*  range. Laboratory experiments have shown that a mixture of Methane
*  Clathrates (A special mixture of Methane and Water Ice), frozen CO,
*  CO2 and frozen Ammonia will change colour when exposed to Ionising
*  radiation - changing from a bluish to reddish colour - caused by the
*  removal of Hydrogen from the ices and the formation of Tholins -
*  complex HydroCarbons. This process has been put forward as a possible
*  reason for the reddening of KBOs, with impact resurfacing as the
   driving mechanism for the range of colours observed.
   Blue colour change induced by condensatal frosting after impact.
   Blue colour change induced by crater resurfacing on a KBO
   </quote>


If someone would want to cover-up this Planet-X, what would he do.
It must appear normal, to appear normal it must be part of a standard group
of objects.

  1983 reportedly the date the reddish Planet-X was discovered on a highly
  elliptical orbit well outside Pluto.

  1992 The Kuiper Belt Objects are found, first one QB1 is oddly rich in
  red hues, they have elliptical orbits and travel from Pluto's orbit
  to far away out the solar system. There are now 300 of them, and there
  may be as many as 100.000, many -if not all- reddish. Their sizes vary 
  wildly, a greater body among them may be lurking still out there,
  undiscovered.

Jos