TNP versus TNO

by Michael Feist, Hamburg

The 8 hypothetical Transneptunians of Uranian Astrology (TNP) are called "planets" for historical reasons. It started as an astrological research project of Alfred Witte, where he tried to discover the orbits of unknown planets.

However, it is more unlikely that new observed planetary bodies will obtain the status of a planet, today. So the usage of the title “Planet” for our hypothetical bodies will be not the state of the art, today. One reason is the new category of Dwarf Planets and the new definition of the "International Astronomical Union" about planets. The other reason is, that hypothetical astrological bodies were not yet confirmed by science, today.

For a few years, the term "Transneptunian Objects" (TNO) is used for a group of bodies in the Kupier Belt region. These objects are located beyond the Neptune with a distance between 30-50 astronomical units to the sun. At the moment, the "International Astronomical Union" published a list of more than 2400 TNOs.

For Uranian Astrology it is important to distinguish between hypothetical Transneptunians (TNP) and de facto Transneptunians (TNO), because only the Transneptunian "Cupido" is located in the Kupier Belt area. The hypothetical Transneptunians have solar distances with a larger range between 41-84 astronomical units to the sun, and both ranges are overlapping, see next image.


TNO versus TNP - Distances in AU

Nevertheless, comparing of the properties of TNPs and TNOs is interesting. Some TNOs possess similar properties to Cupido. At present no TNO is known, which is identical to the hypothetical "Cupido." However, the following similarities with Cupido can be currently stated:

4 TNOs have eccentricities from 0.004 to 0.005 e
39 TNOs have inclinations of 1.0 to 1.1°
17 TNOs have semi-axes from 40.9 to 41.1 AU

The low eccentricities of hypothetical Transneptunians have been questioned in the past and put forward as a counter-argument for its possible existence. However, the following TNOs are in the same range of eccentricity as Alfred Witte's Transneptunians:

JA132, YL179, UN284, OQ108, VB170, QU180

The eccentricities of Sieggruens Transneptunians are lacking, which in fact seems to be unrealistic. However,  so far the value of eccentricity is also been missing in total of 126 TNOs. This simply means that astronomers need to work with unknown or very low eccentricities, too.

For more information on the de facto Transneptunians (TNO), please visit the following website of the "International Astronomical Union": List Of Transneptunian Objects

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TNP vs. TNO

This research has made use of data and/or services provided by the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center.