REAL LIFE NEWS: COULD THERE BE A NINTH PLANET IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM?
by Hazed
Science advances when somebody sees something they don’t understand, goes “Huh!” and formulates a theory to explain it. That’s what happened with some astronomers, who saw some of the objects out on the edge of our system behaving oddly, and came up with an explanation: a huge planet lurking far beyond Pluto.
This wholly theoretical planet has been nicknamed Planet Nine. If the researchers are right, then it’s ten times more massive than Earth, and up to four times the size. Its orbit is extremely elongated and it takes between 10,000 and 20,000 years to move around the sun.
So why do the astronomers from CalTech think it exists? Well, they were studying the orbit of some space rocks in the Kuiper belt, the region of space where Pluto lives, and they found that six of the objects were moving on orbits that headed in the same direction, and tilted at the same angle. They came up with various explanations but computer modelling and simulations ruled out all except for one: the existence of a hitherto unknown planet, which would influence the orbits of the small rocks. Their simulations showed that this could be the explanation.
So why haven’t we spotted this massive planet before? Well, it’s a very long way away – the closest it would come to the sun is 15 times the distance to Pluto. At its furthest from the sun it would be 75 times further out than Pluto, about 93 billion miles from the sun.
Despite being so distant from Earth, the putative planet’s size is great enough that astronomers should be able to spot it crossing the night sky if they use sensitive enough telescopes. The Subaru telescope in Hawaii has already begun to look for it, and it is hoped they will spot it within five years.
Source: http://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jan/20/ninth-planet-solar-system-edge-discovery-pluto
