Researchers closely tracked and computationally analyzed moon and asteroid sized objects beyond Neptune and determined that a ninth planet about five times bigger than the Earth is about 16 times further than Pluto. A planet matching Planet Nine’s expected characteristics would still be relatively small, with a mass just five times that of Earth, and a distance of some 500 times that of our own distance from the Sun.
More powerful telescopes like the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile will help answer the question and find or fail to find Planet 9. There should also be many smaller planets at the edge of the solar system in the Pluto, Mercury and Mars size range. Vera C. Rubin Observatory first light for the engineering camera is expected in August 2024, while system first light is expected in January 2025 and full survey operations are aimed to begin in August 2025. LSST data is scheduled to become fully public after two years.
The calculations also indicate that unless the mass of the inner Oort Cloud is taken to be unreasonably large (i.e., tens to hundreds of Earth masses), the characteristic timescale of these cycles would far exceed the age of the sun. Therefore, at present, Planet 9 remains the only plausible explanation for the observed distribution of longperiod Neptune-crossers.
Researchers looked towards those objects (30-100 AU from the sun), and tried to understand their movements. Dr Batygin claimed, the best explanation is that they result from another, undiscovered planet.
The team carried out a host of simulations to understand how those objects’ orbits were affected by a variety of things, including the giant planets around them such as Neptune, the “Galactic tide” that comes from the Milky Way, and passing stars.
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Pluto will always a planet to me and a dog.
There is still room for the object to be something weirder. A primordial blackhole.
Interestingly, the same astronomer, Mike Brown, who led the demotion of Pluto into just another dwarf planet, is also the same guy who has been reading orbital tea leaves for years and predicting the existence of a large planet influencing the Kuiper Belt.
It figures. 5 times Earths mass would be just low enough to visit briefly if you were an elite body builder but not live on for any length of time. The only use we could get out of it would be via nuclear powered, all robot facilities.
To me, a planet could be defined as an isolated space body w/enough mass to be round. Pluto certainly qualifies.
Is planet 9 more a wish or myth then reality? Under what conditions should such a planet exist where people think it “should be”? Until there is hard evidence such a planet exists, this all seems like very weird wishful thinking. Of course, I’d love to be wrong (something I know something about…)
“the characteristic timescale of these cycles would far exceed the age of the sun.”
Information to indicate what cycles are being referred to is missing.
if its a gasplanet than it probably should have auroras visible and in the radiospectrum around the poles, i say do a computersimulation of the expected raiosignal and task some radio telescopes to look for similar signature in our vicinity.
Personally, I’m of the opinion that the 9th planet is Pluto, and we should not respect the decision to ‘demote’ that planet for sketchy reasons. But I suppose it’s not a big deal, “planet” is not a natural category anyway.
We really should do that large scale occultation survey I suggested; Having orbital data on a large number of trans-Plutonian objects would help a lot in pinning down the location of planet 10, and it would have a significant chance of actually spotting it directly.
Here’s one vote for restoring Pluto to its place amongst the whole, full, complete planets.
It is big enough to be gravitationally compressed to spherical.
It is old enough to have ‘been there’ since the rest of the planets formed.
It definitely has ‘cleared its orbital neighborhood’ of competing orbs.
And tho’ still oblate, it definitely is precessing toward the ecliptic.
And … there was no reason to demote it. THAT is the best reason of all. Millions of textbooks had to be amended … to demote lil’ Pluto. And for what? A pölïtically correct(ed) designation of a minor planet status … which no ordinary Jo gave a flying fûque about? Really?
Pluto. Planet 9.
⋅-⋅-⋅ Just saying, ⋅-⋅-⋅
⋅-=≡ GoatGuy ✓ ≡=-⋅
I agree. Seen up close, Pluto is a very complex, round, amazing structure. It’s big enough in mass to be round. That makes it at least a big moon, if it was orbiting something, which I don’t think it is. Pluto has a moon orbiting it, at least one, called Cheron (my spelling is ghastly, but I mean well). Call Pluto a planet? Hell yes, and just who is this going to hurt?
If its interfering with bodies in its orbit without gobbling them up, its technically still a dwarf planet like Pluto. (Or else Pluto shouldn’t have been demoter)
For something to be called a planet, we all need to agree on certain definitions. A planet should have a predictable orbit around our sun. 100 years from now, we will know where Pluto will be. I have no clue, but an astronomer will know (because that among other things is what they know). But just because something orbits our sun in a predictable way, does that make it a planet? I would say alone, no. Do asteroids orbit our sun in a predictable way? I honestly don’t know.
(I know we’re trying to detect/intercept asteroids before they kick us in the ass, I guess we’ll all know if we get that right)
So if orbital mechanics alone do not define a planet, perhaps it’s mass, and because of that it’s topology does. So if it’s big enough to be a ball, and it orbits our sun, to me that screams PLANET!. After all, Pluto is not floating around the Kieper belt, it’s orbiting our sun. Yes it takes a LONG time to do so. But it’s very far away, so give the poor thing a break.
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