World
November 7, 2024 09:50
usa - Scientists speculate on the potential discovery of a ninth planet in our solar system known as 'Planet 9'.
Could there soon be concrete evidence for the existence of 'Planet 9'? The 'evidence' around this 'super-earth' has been piling up, but when will we see the first telescope images of this mysterious celestial body?
Our solar system consists of eight planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Pluto was considered a planet until 2006, but is now classified as a dwarf planet. Are we on the verge of welcoming a new, ninth planet?
Beyond Pluto lies the Kuiper Belt, named after the Dutch astronomer Gerard Kuiper. This belt is comprised of billions of rock blocks, which are found to orbit the sun in clusters. American researchers believe that these clusters can be explained by the gravitational forces of a mysterious new planet.
'Planet Nine' is estimated to be about ten times the mass of Earth. It is projected to be approximately twenty times farther from the sun than Neptune, with a year lasting 10,000 to 20,000 Earth years.
Due to the great distances of objects in the Kuiper Belt from the sun, they are challenging to detect. For over a decade, astronomers have been searching in this region for a hidden planet that has never been directly observed, but its presence is inferred from the behavior of other nearby objects.
The excitement surrounding 'Planet Nine' is accompanied by some controversy, as different scientific camps hold conflicting theories about the planet, with some researchers even doubting its existence.
'If we find another planet, that is truly world news,' said Malena Rice, assistant professor of astronomy at Yale University, to CNN. 'It could completely alter our understanding of the solar system and other planetary systems. It also speaks to how Earth fits into that context. It's very exciting.'
CNN reports that the debate around 'Planet Nine' may soon be settled, potentially when a new telescope becomes available by the end of 2025. This telescope will be capable of surveying the entire available sky every few nights, allowing for more thorough investigations.
'The most striking visual evidence remains that the most distant objects beyond Neptune all have orbits pointing in one direction,' said researcher Mike Brown from Caltech. Brown, along with co-researcher Konstantin Batygin, has been actively involved since 2014 in the actual search for the elusive planet.
In the duo's latest study, they are tracking icy celestial bodies that are being slung into orbits around Neptune before leaving the solar system. 'The lifetimes of these objects are minuscule compared to the age of the solar system,' said Batygin. 'There must be a force behind that. What could it be?'
However, some researchers argue that currently there are too few of these distant 'transneptunian' objects detected to draw conclusions about their orbits.
'We have about a dozen of these objects,' said Renu Malhotra, a planetary sciences professor at the University of Arizona. 'But we only observe the brightest, and even a small fraction of those, because we observe them when they are closest to the sun.'
Other researchers suggest that 'galactic tides' could be influencing the observed orbits, originating from distant stars in the Milky Way galaxy. Yet, Batygin and his team conducted computer simulations to test this theory and found a scenario without the hidden planet to be 'strongly refuted by the data.'
The hypothesis of a super-earth garners much support among scientists, but there are also competing theories. A study published in August 2023 proposes the existence of a hidden planet that is, in reality, much smaller, with a mass between 1.5 and 3 times that of Earth.
Most scientists agree on one thing: directly observing the planet would put an end to the debate and controversy. However, despite efforts, over a decade later, it has not yet come to fruition.
In March, using a super-observatory in Hawaii, 78 percent of the sky where Planet Nine could be located was analyzed. Yet, the object was not found. Batygin explains that spotting such a distant object without specific knowledge of its location is extremely challenging.
Amid controversies and diverse opinions, all researchers concur on one point. A new wide-angle telescope, currently under construction, has the potential to settle the debate. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory features the largest digital camera ever built, situated atop a mountain in northern Chile.
'This is the next-generation telescope. It can scan the entire available sky every few days,' Batygin stated. 'It could easily discover Planet Nine directly, which would be a fantastic conclusion to the search and open a new chapter.'