Does Planet Nine Exist? Ever since Pluto was kicked out of the official group of planets, a hypothetical hidden planet on the outer edge of our solar system has eluded its discovery all this time. Have we found it? A team of scientists from the US-based California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has published a study in which they believe they have determined where the elusive Planet Nine should be.
No definitive evidence (yet)
The evidence for Planet Nine comes from its gravitational pull on other bodies. If the planet really exists, its gravity will clearly affect the orbits of other planets. So, with a “something” of math, we could find the source. In fact, this is how Neptune was discovered, when John Couch Adams and Urbain Le Verrier independently observed that Uranus appeared to be dragged by an invisible planet.
Although in the case of Planet Nine we do not have any gravitational effect on a planet, we do appreciate a strange grouping of small icy bodies known as Kuiper belt objects. If there were no planets beyond the Kuiper belt, the orbits of these objects would have to be randomly oriented within the orbital plane of the solar system. However, many of them are grouped in the same orientation. And, although it could be a coincidence, it is likely that the person responsible is precisely … Planet Nine.
Caltech astronomers Mike Brown and Konstantin Batygin (who announced the first evidence for this world in 2016) argued that if this invisible planet lurks on the outer edge of our cosmic neighborhood, they know exactly where to look for it.
Based on their calculations, the researchers claim that this world has a mass approximately six times that of Earth and that its distance from the Sun is about 300 times the distance between the Sun and Earth (that is, closer to our own). star of what was initially believed). The map simulation shows a new orbital period of 7,400 Earth years. This is an important finding since the orbital period is another factor in determining the distance of a celestial body orbiting a star or other space object.
So why haven’t we found it yet?
According to experts, if the planet exists, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory will be able to detect it in the near future since, so far, the observations made have ruled out the closest options for Planet Nine. That is, all of our attempts to locate and observe the putative planet have (so far) failed due to selection bias.
The study authors conclude that clustered bodies in the asteroid belt remain an unusual phenomenon, with only a 0.4% chance that it will occur without a nearby body with significant mass, such as a planet. Therefore, if Planet Nine is real, astronomers should detect it very soon even though there are many scientists skeptical about it.
Will we find this ninth planet? Time will tell what the final verdict will be on this mysterious and frozen world.
Referencia: The orbit of Planet Nine Michael E. Brown, Konstantin Batygin arXiv:2108.09868 [astro-ph.EP] Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences California Institute of Technology Pasadena, CA 91125, USA https://arxiv.org/pdf/2108.09868.pdf
