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NASA Space

Is There New Evidence for a 9th Planet - Planet X? (discovermagazine.com) 145

Posted by EditorDavid from the forbidden-planets dept.
This week Discover magazine looks at evidence — both old and new — for a ninth planet in our solar system: "Orbits of the most distant small bodies — comets or asteroids — seem to be clustered on one half or one side of the solar system," says Amir Siraj [an astrophysicist with Princeton University]. "That's very weird and something that can't be explained by our current understanding of the solar system." A 2014 study in Nature first noted these orbits. A 2021 study in The Astronomical Journal examined the clustering in the orbit and concluded that "Planet Nine" was likely closer and brighter than expected.

Astrophysicists don't agree whether the clustering in the orbit is a real effect. Some have argued it is biased because the view that scientists currently have is limited, Siraj says. "This debate for the last decade has a lot of scientists confused, including myself. I decided to look at the problem from scratch," he says.

In a 2024 paper, Siraj and his co-authors ran simulations of the solar system, including an extra planet beyond Neptune. "We did it 300 times, about 2.5 times more than what was done previously," Siraj says. "In each simulation, you try different parameters for the extra planet. A different mass, a different tilt, a different shape of the orbit. You run these for millions of years, and then you compare the distribution to what we see in our solar system...." They found that the perimeters for this possible planet were different than what has been previously discussed in the scientific literature, and they supported the possibility of an unseen planet beyond Neptune.

Scientists hope a new telescope will have the potential to see deeper into the solar system. In 2025, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory on Cerro Pachón — a mountain in Chile, is expected to go online. The observatory boasts that in the time it takes a person to open up their phone and pose for a selfie, their new telescope will be able to snap an image of 100,000 galaxies, many of which have never been seen by scientists. The telescope will have the largest digital camera ever built, the LSST. Siraj says he expects it will take "the deepest, all-sky survey that humanity has ever conducted." So, what might the Rubin Observatory find past Neptune? Based on the current literature, Siraj sees a few possibilities. One is that the Rubin Observatory, with its increased capabilities, might be able to see a planet beyond Neptune... "Next year is going to be an enormous year for solar system science," he says.
NASA points out that the Hawaii-based Keck and Subaru telescopes are also searching for Planet X, while "a NASA-funded citizen science project called Backyard Worlds: Planet 9, encourages the public to help search using images captured by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission.

And starting next year the Rubin observatory will also "search for more Kuiper Belt objects. If the orbits of these objects are systematically aligned with each other, it may give more evidence for the existence of Planet X (Planet Nine), or at least help astronomers know where to search for it.

"Another possibility is that Planet X (Planet Nine) does not exist at all. Some researchers suggest the unusual orbit of those Kuiper Belt objects can be explained by their random distribution."

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader Tablizer for sharing the news.
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Is There New Evidence for a 9th Planet - Planet X? More

Is There New Evidence for a 9th Planet - Planet X?

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  • 10th planet. (Score:5, Funny)

    by iAmWaySmarterThanYou ( 10095012 ) on Saturday November 09, 2024 @07:05PM (#64933971)

    Pluto got robbed.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Anonymous Coward

      They should rename it to Planet IX.

    • Re:10th planet. (Score:5, Funny)

      by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Saturday November 09, 2024 @07:29PM (#64933999)

      Pluto got robbed.

      So did the Romans. Planet X is the 9th planet? Really? Entire celestial zone named after ancient Gods and someone suddenly forgets how to count.

      • Re:10th planet. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Himmy32 ( 650060 ) on Saturday November 09, 2024 @10:01PM (#64934203)
        Yeah, like December the twelfth month.

        • You have a point.
          But in ancient times, the roman year started in March, and December was the tenth month!

          • And the calendar didn't even count days during the winter quarter of the year (winter solstice to next equinox, approximately).

            That's conflation on my behalf. I think that Julius Caesar's calendar reforms (50~48 BCE? ) both named "December" and extended the calendar to cover the whole year. But I'd have to check.

            People seem to think there is a rational, astronomical basis for our calendars. For most things, that's at best approximate. For durations it's more accurate then for phases. 1 day's length is wit

            • Well,
              the other interesting question is: why do people not know why a circle has 360 degrees? Or why 12 and 60 are interesting numbers.

              The 15 days period got me once. My GF at that time got pregnant. Variation actually means: it can vary in the same woman broadly. If she has a "child wish" that actually greatly influences fertility.

        • Yeah, like December the twelfth month.

          ..on a planet counting its 2,024th year of apparent relevance.

          Yeah, sure. A few things here and there probably happened before then, but who’s counting that? Pfft. Like nobody.

    • I think Pluto actually got robbed because the criteria for planet-hood is too vague. Thus tradition should have kept it as a planet. "Clear out its orbit" is not all or nothing. If even a big planet is in an unfortunate orbit, it may have trouble clearing its orbit if in competition with other body(s), at least for a good while until one or the other gets flung away.

      It's a continuum between large and small bodies. Any attempt to draw a clear line will just generate tons of head-scratching edge-cases. Thus,

      • Didn't we go through this with all the planets that were reclassified as "asteroids" when the term was coined? In the mid 19th century, there were a lot of planets in the solar system. If they weren't going to repeat that with the Kuiper Belt objects, Pluto should have been reclassified as soon as we started finding more.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dryeo ( 100693 )

        The thing with Pluto was there was always an argument about whether it is a planet. It came down to it's albedo, Americans argued it was a dark planet, like Mercury or the Moon, which meant that it was close to the size of Mercury and a planet. Others argued it was an ice world and too small to be considered a planet according to the guidelines that were used to demote Ceres from planetary status.
        In my life, the text books have steadily shrunk Pluto from comparable to Mercury to a binary with a primary that

        • Tombaugh initially estimated Pluto's size as comparable to Uranus or Neptune. That got rowed back pretty quickly (late 1930s?), but it was shrinking by about a factor of 5 every decade from then until the discovery of Charon (when we got accurate measures of it's size and mass - 1/600th Earth mass).

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dryeo ( 100693 )

            I didn't know the initial estimate was so big. I guess he was also considering how Pluto was supposed to perturb Neptune's orbit.

      • I think Pluto actually got robbed because the criteria for planet-hood is too vague.

        I think it's more an issue that our measurement tools (telescopes, telescope mounts, clocks, combining to make astrometry [wikipedia.org] more precise ; plus improving mathematical tools to interpret the astrometry) got better faster than our taxonomy. When all you had was an eyeball and a few marker stones (or a wall), "fixed stars" and "wandering stars" (Greek, approximately planeteri in characters beyond Slashdot's understanding) was a

    • Re:10th planet. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Waffle Iron ( 339739 ) on Saturday November 09, 2024 @08:23PM (#64934071)

      If Pluto is a planet, then there are thousands of planets. That would mean that they are looking for something like planet 2763.

      • No, we came up with a separate category for objects like Pluto, dwarf planets, because we expected to find a lot more. We found one more, Eris, and it's been silence since. If we count clearing orbit as a requirement for planethood, the solar system has four planets, Jupiter, Neptune, Uranus, and Saturn. Ten is a fine number for planets, Pluto and Eris should be allowed back in the club. Besides, we should have learned our lesson about leaving Eris out of clubs from the Iliad.
        • I meant to say dwarf planets larger than Pluto, not just dwarf planets.

          • Right: 1000 miles is a fundamental constants of nature. Since Haumea comes up just short of that, it's obviously not a planet like Eris.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Sique ( 173459 )
          You have it backwards. First Eris was discovered, and then Pluto demoted. Otherwise, Eris would already be Planet X, given that it is nearly the same size as Pluto. Now you have a choice (the same the IAU had):
          1. Eris is a planet, and we already discovered Planet X. But where we discover two, there might be even more (and there are).
          2. Eris is not a planet. But then, explain the fundamental difference between Pluto and Eris to call one a planet and not the other.
          3. We accept Eris as a planet, but then stop promo

        • No, we came up with a separate category for objects like Pluto, dwarf planets, because we expected to find a lot more. We found one more, Eris, and it's been silence since.

          Cart and horse sequence disorder!

          The discovery of Eris - in 2005 - and it's probably greater-than-Pluto size was what precipitated the "crisis of definition" and the IAU's adoption of a more precise definition of "planet" in 2006. That's also part of the reason that Mike Brown titled his 2010 autobiography "How I Killed Pluto and Why It

      • If you simply remove the "must have cleared its orbit" requirement - the only one Pluto doesn't fulfill - you add nine planets. But putting that aside, "There are too many by this definition" is a pretty terrible reason to change a definition.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Yes, Pluto is a planet. Fuck You to anyone who says it isn't.

  • Pluto (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Local ID10T ( 790134 ) <ID10T.L.USER@gmail.com> on Saturday November 09, 2024 @07:06PM (#64933975) Homepage

    Pluto will have its revenge!

  • The state of things (Score:5, Informative)

    by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Saturday November 09, 2024 @07:08PM (#64933977)

    It's a big orbit, and though we're probably talking about a largish rocky world... at the model distance it'll be extraordinarily dim and moving very slowly. It's not easy to find anything like that.

    Initially, they thought they'd find it in a year or two, but didn't get so lucky. And it there are some differences of opinion as to the most likely explanation for the evidence that has us looking for this planet in the first place, but luckily the required telescope work should be adequate for all possibilities that include there actually being a planet.

    Unfortunately, the evidence isn't really strong enough to be certain - it's strong enough to make us look, but thin enough that there's plenty of room for it to turn out to coincidental and evidence of nothing.

    With newer telescopes becoming available that should be better at the required survey, we're back to 'we should know in a few years'.

    • It's a big orbit, and though we're probably talking about a largish rocky world

      I'm not an astrophysicist, but aren't planets this size inevitably ice giants?

    • At 200AU from the Sun, a planet would likely have an equilibrium temperature of ~20K. The Webb telescope's lower end is 28 microns which translates to 100K. So we are not going to find this by its infrared signature. A small gas planet with this mass and an perfectly reflective albedo of 1 would reflect a barely detectable 20k photons per second from the sun, with almost no signal-to-noise ratio against the back-ground sky because the mass off the cone of dust between the Sun and this planet is roughly th
      • I'm not sure I follow your "mass off the cone of dust between the Sun and this planet" argument. but I don't think it matters because I disagree at the other end of your model,

        At 200AU from the Sun, a planet would likely have an equilibrium temperature of ~20K.

        You are assuming, I think, that the only thing affecting the surface temperature of the planet (any planet) is it's irradiation from the Sun (and other stars, but they're negligible). It's not. There is also the contribution from intrinsic radioactive

  • 9th Planet? (Score:5, Funny)

    by gosso920 ( 6330142 ) on Saturday November 09, 2024 @07:16PM (#64933983)
    Yes. It's called Pluto.

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by Baron_Yam ( 643147 )

      What about the other 4000 similar objects out there that it is sharing space with? Are they all planets, then?

      We stopped calling Pluto a planet for a reason. It became useless for classification once we realized it was far from alone out there.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by schwit1 ( 797399 )

        Pluto was grandfathered in.

        • Not by the IAU, and in terms of what astronomers are going to say... their opinion matters and yours does not.

          • If the people believe Pluto is a planet, then it does not matter what the elites say. You can't just disappear everyone's childhood memories like that. It's like telling them Mickey is not really a mouse.
            • And you have even bigger problems with ducks. Look at Donald and his family and compare them to Daffy. It's hard to consider them all to be members of the same species, yet we have no problem thinking of all of them as ducks.
            • Anyone under age 20 (19? I'd need to get a calendar) has no memories of Pluto other than wrangling about whether or not it is a planet. At most, they'll remember that there was a rancorous diatribe about the question. At best you'd leave them completely undecided about Pluto's planethood, and most likely also thoroughly hacked off by the question.

              Sorry, wasn't that the answer you were looking for?

          • Pretty much sums it up.
          • Planetary geologists disagree, and their opinion should matter.
      • There aren't 4000. There are MAYBE 9.
    • The problem with that is that if you call Pluto the 9th planet then we have already found the 10th planet - it is Eris [wikipedia.org] since Eris is actually larger than Pluto and also has its own moon. We have to have a line somewhere to separate planets from smaller objects orbiting the sun otherwise we are going to have thousands, if not millions of "planets" as every rock will count.

      • We have to have a line somewhere to separate planets from smaller objects

        Do we "have to have a line"? Aren't they all subject to the laws of physics?

        To re-answer my own question, probably "yes", but at points where the physics and/ or chemistry change significantly. Putting a number to those changes, and identifying remote stars well enough are left as exercises for the theorists and observers to bun-fight over

        From the top down, I've not heard much complaint about using the mass at which sustained hydroge

      • The problem with that is that if you call Pluto the 9th planet then we have already found the 10th planet - it is Eris [wikipedia.org] since Eris is actually larger than Pluto and also has its own moon.

        Eris isn't actually larger. It has somewhat higher mass and much higher albedo, but it's somewhat smaller. But putting that nitpick asid, this isn't an actual problem.

        We have to have a line somewhere to separate planets from smaller objects orbiting the sun otherwise we are going to have thousands, if not millions of "planets" as every rock will count.

        And that line would naturally seem to be whether or not the object has achieved hydrostatic equilibrium.

  • We all know what unspeakable object is out there. We just cowardishly avoid thinking about it...

  • Yes and no. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Saturday November 09, 2024 @07:31PM (#64934003)

    What we have is a "missing" amount of mass that in our star system that keeps our math in balance with the physical reality. It seems like the prevailing speculation is a planet we have yet to find but we honestly do not know. It should be called the dark planet theory and before someone claims it's a moon, I'll tell you, "that's no moon!"

  • It's called "Pluto." (A dwarf planet is still a planet)

    • No, that would make Pluto planet 10, since by your definition Ceres would count as #5.

      • It's not my definition. It's the IAU's definition.

        • You can't have it both ways.

          Either Ceres is planet 5 and Pluto is planet 10, or neither one of them is a planet with a number.

          • Does the IAU define the ordering numbers of planets?

            • Yes. They say that neither Ceres nor Pluto is a bona fide planet with a number.

              Therefore your original assertion regarding a hypothetical 9th planet, "Yeah, It' called Pluto", is false.

              • Liar. They say Pluto is a dwarf planet. A dwarf planet is a type of planet.

                • And apparently your brain is a type of brick wall.

                • Liar. They say Pluto is a dwarf planet. A dwarf planet is a type of planet.

                  It's not nice to call someone a liar when you are wrong (or when you are right, but that's not the case here). From the wiki page on the IAU definition: [wikipedia.org]

                  According to the IAU, "planets and dwarf planets are two distinct classes of objects" – in other words, "dwarf planets" are not planets.

                  • According to the rules of English, an adjective modifies a noun. So you are a fool. You probably don't speak more than three languages.

          • Pluto was considered planet #9 - before it got demoted.
            And Ceres was never considered to be a planet.
            It is a dwarf planet or big asteroid, up to you.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by dryeo ( 100693 )

              Ceres was considered a planet when first discovered. Then they found more objects in roughly the same area and created a new class of objects called Asteroids.
              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] scroll down to classification.

              • The asteroids are still asteroids.
                And Ceres is still a dwarf planet.

                Big difference, as Ceres is molding himself by gravity into a sphere. Asteroids do not do that.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by dryeo ( 100693 )

                  Yes, that's the current classification. Wasn't that long ago that Ceres was considered an asteroid.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dryeo ( 100693 )

      Yes, and a Guinea Pig is a pig from Africa, it's in the name.

      • I like the way you think and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dryeo ( 100693 )

          More thoughts, a white dwarf star is not a star, contrary to its name, neither is a neutron star a star as a star is defined as an object under going nuclear fusion.

          • Unsubscribe.

            Realistically though, the IAUs definition of a planet is crap and no one uses it (for example, everyone talks about Earth as though it were a planet, even though it hasn't cleared its orbit).
    • But Pluto, is not large enough to have cleared its orbit, which a planet should have.
      • Neither has Earth. "Clearing its orbit" was the dumbest part of the IAU definition of a planet. I don't know why they included it.

        Regardless, a dwarf planet is still a planet.
  • Planet X would be the tenth planet.

    • X in this case stands for "unknown"
      And not for number 10.

      • Everyone knows it is the planet formerly known as Twitter.

        When you can't write, you sign with an 'X', think about that... This unnamed yet to be found planet is already being disrespected, I guess it's the next Pluto.

  • I think once JWST became operational, it should be available to look for that supposed "Planet X."

    With higher resolution than the Hubble Space Telescope, it stands a better chance of being found if the parameters are right. A big problem with Earth-based telescopes is that even in the best atmospheric conditions at places like the European Southern Observatory, you still have to deal with the refraction of the Earth's atmosphere, and that could make detection of such a planet from ground-based observatories

  • This is consistent with the long march of Pioneer data throughout the 80's showing equal forces from a dead star binary and an Earth-size (4-5x) planet in the Kuiper Belt.

    Then in the early 90's a single NASA astronomer said "whoopsies, everybody was wrong with their math" and somehow The Science just believed him and dropped it.

    Except for a small team at Caltech. It's said they'll have something important to report soon.

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