Celestial body, black hole or void: how scientists hunt for the elusive ninth planet

Why are we so sure that Planet Nine exists

In 2016, American astronomers Konstantin Batygin

and Michael Brown hypothesized thatThere is another one in the Kuiper belt, Planet Nine. Their assumption was based on an analysis of several particularly distant orbits of objects in the Kuiper belt, such as Sedna, for example, which for some reason move across the sky in the same plane and in the same direction.

After many months of modeling and verificationdata with the actual, astronomers have come to a surprising conclusion even for themselves: very far beyond Neptune there is another celestial body with a mass of about ten Earths and not approaching the Sun closer than 280 astronomical units. And it is this that stretches and straightens the orbits of these "strange" Kuiper belt bodies.

Finding the ninth planet was not the easiesttask. Due to the large distance to this hypothetical object, it should be so dim that it can only be seen through a telescope with a mirror diameter of several meters.

Planet 9 doesn't have to be a planet

It sounds paradoxical, but there are theories in favor of the fact that there is a black hole in the place of the ninth planet. 

Primordial black holes are hypothetical objects that formed in the early moments of the Big Bang. If they existed, they would have the mass of a planet, not a star.

If Planet Nine is the original black hole,then it will be the size of an apple. This would make it too small and dark for our modern telescopes. However, she still attracts nearby objects, so there may be other ways to find her.

One way is to send a tinyspace probe in the direction of the predicted general direction. A spacecraft weighing about 100 grams can be programmed to transmit a regularly synchronized signal. If any of them fall into the range of the black hole, the signals will be expanded by its gravity.

The disadvantage of this approach is thatthe spacecraft would need to synchronize its signals with the precision of an atomic clock, and there are currently no atomic clocks small enough to fit on a 100-gram probe.

Another team suggested an alternative in whichthe probes instead send out a simple signal, and high-resolution radio telescopes measure the displacement of their paths. But the third team argues that effects such as the solar wind will suppress any gravitational effects.

Planet Nine is a super-Earth

American scientists came to the conclusion thatThe potential Ninth Planet of the Solar System, known as Planet X, is 5-10 times heavier than Earth, that is, it belongs to the class of super-Earths, and not gas giants, as previously thought. 

An analysis of the movement of trans-Neptunian celestial bodies showed that Planet X is approximately one and a half times closer to the Sun than previously thought.

Scientists believe that a potential Ninththe planet is in an orbit with a semi-major axis of 400-800 astronomical units and an inclination of 15-25 degrees. Eccentricity (characterizes the degree of elongation of the orbit) is estimated at 0.2-0.5.

Where exactly is the Ninth Planet

Of course, there is no exact information yet.But there are different most likely hypotheses. Scientists have examined the orbits of all known Kuiper Belt objects thought to be influenced by Planet Nine. The Kuiper Belt is an icy body orbiting beyond Neptune.

Scientists have analyzed the orbits of these bodies and theirvibrations indicating the presence of a large object nearby with powerful gravity. They also took into account the gravity of Neptune and tried to exclude it from the computer model.

Observations combined with numerical simulationsallowed them to establish the most likely orbit of Planet Nine. True, it remains unknown at what point it is located. According to astronomers, now the mysterious object has moved as far as possible from the Sun.

According to calculations, the mass of Planet Nine is 6.2mass of the Earth. The distance between it and the Sun is from 300 to 380 astronomical units (one AU is the distance between the Sun and the Earth). The inclination of the orbit is 16 degrees (for comparison, the Earth’s inclination is 0 degrees, Pluto’s is 17).

How Planet Nine Can Be Seen

Batygin and Brown believe that the proposed planet can be seen in a wide-angle reflecting telescope with three huge mirrors at the Vera Rubin Observatory, located in Chile.

It will be commissioned in 2022 and should be fully operational in 2023.

To read Further:

A new metal has appeared in which electrons move like a liquid

A special weight for deceiving buyers: an unusual artifact was discovered in Israel

New iOS 15: release date, iPhone design and features. We tell everything that is known