On Thu Jun 7 14:57:14, PhilW wrote:
> On Thu Jun 7 14:20:32, DA wrote:
> > Marcy, who with his colleagues has found more extrasolar
> > planets than anyone, said detecting planets around a
> > brown dwarf, even one that's a light year away, would be
> > "an enormous challenge."
>
> Could Marcy have forgotten the "old" astrometric
> methods of planet search? A close by dwarf is as he
> said, close by. Combine that with its 100x less mass
> than the sun and you then have a body whose IR light
> image will wobble per the period of the orbiting planet.
> It wobbles 100x more because of the mass difference plus
> another 10x or so because of the closeness. Bottom line,
> 1000x easier to detect the planets via astrometry, given
> 2001 state of the art IR sensitive CCD detectors.
>
> -philw (ready to accept his astronomy Nobel)

Haven't they been looking for Nemesis for quite awhile?

Maybe a transit would be the best way to catch such a body? How long did it take them to locate Varuna, the next largest KBO after Pluto and Charon?

Yet maybe that Nobel belongs to you, after all?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1347000/1347031.stm

'Scientists say that Varuna goes some way to vindicate the views held by the late US astronomer Clyde Tombaugh. He discovered Pluto in 1930 looking for what he called Planet X. He continued his search after its discovery believing there were other worlds out there waiting to be discovered.

'Stephen Tegler, of Northern Arizona University, said: "This work raises the possibility that Pluto is not the only Planet X, but perhaps one of several.

'"We can now imagine that bodies even larger and more distant than Pluto will be found. Such objects have so far escaped detection because of their extreme faintness, due in part to the feeble illuminating light from the Sun and in part to their very dark surfaces."

'Astronomers are hopeful that further discoveries could be made in the Kuiper Belt, following the launch of a telescope attached to the cargo bay of the space shuttle.

'The Shuttle Infrared Telescope Facility will be deployed in 2002 and is expected to measure the diameters and reflectivities of dozens of Kuiper Belt objects.'