What if every science book became outdated at the same time. The long thought constant that there are eight planets in our solar system could be wrong. A completely theoretical ninth planet may lie at the edge of our solar system. This theory all originated in 2017 when scientists absorbed that some asteroids in the Kuiper belt were orbiting the wrong direction(Sako). The only thing that they could think of is that there is a planet looming at the edge of our solar system. Although finding this ninth planet may prove difficult in locating, we will find it. Firstly a 200 million dollar satellite may have already discovered planet nine, secondly a survey is being carried out to triple the known number of very distant objects in our solar system, lastly the Tess satellite has already scanned the entire southern hemisphere.
The first reason planet nine is locatable is because it may already have been found. A 200 million dollar satellite has already picked up an object around the estimated mass of the planet(Ciaccia). Which is over five times the mass of earth(Parks). Although there is a chance this could be a coincidence, there is a good chance it could be planet nine. Because there's a low chance of discovering something around the same mass of the planet.
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The second reason locating planet 9 should be within reach is that a survey is being carried out to triple the number of known objects in the solar system(Parks). Sheppard and Chad Trudillo are carrying out the most comprehensive survey of the solar system(Parks). The team is confident that planet nine exists. Sheppard says that he's 80 to 90 percent sure planet 9 exists(Parks). This is the most comprehensive survey of our solar system ever, and there's a chance we may find planet nine.
Lastly Tess, a satellite has already scanned the entire southern hemisphere(Ciaccia). Tess looks for exoplanets using the transit method(Ciaccia). Which is just looking around host stars for them(Ciaccia). Although planet nine should be locatable, others say it's impossible. They say that planet nine is too far away to locate, other theories state that it doesn't exist at all. One argument against planet nine brings up the fact that it's too far away to see. When finding planets, planets twice as far away from us look 16 times dimmer(Brown). So doing the math, planet nine would be 160,000 times dimmer(Brown). Although this is true, new breakthroughs in photos have provided a way around this problem. Scientists can now enhance photos to reveal very dim objects(Ciaccia). Even Though the picture may be blurry, the objects still show up in the photos. This is why planet nine will be found.
Others argue that the planet may not exist at all. A recent theory regarding the planet suggests that it's a primordial black hole, around the size of a baseball(Parks). A black hole around this size could generate the same estimations as the planet. Even though this is a respectable theory, there is a major flaw, primordial black holes are completely theoretical, originating from OGLE, or the optical gravitational lensing experiment(Takada). The OGLE data does not prove primordial black holes exist, it only suggests they do. These black holes may not even exist, this is why planet nine will be located in the near future.
Planet nine may be hard to find, but our scientists are determined to find it. And we are confident they will, and if they do it would be the first expansion of the number of planets in our solar system in over 120 years.
Work cited
- Parks, Jake. “Planet Nine May Be a Black Hole the Size of a Baseball.” Astronomy.com, 1 Oct. 2019, astronomy.com/news/2019/10/planet-nine-may-be-a-black-hole-the-size-of-a-baseball.
- Brown, Mike. “The Search for Our Solar System's Ninth Planet.” TED, www.ted.com/talks/mike_brown_the_search_for_our_solar_system_s_ninth_planet?language=en.Parks, Jake. “In Pursuit of Planet Nine.” Astronomy.com, 3 Jan. 2020, astronomy.com/magazine/2020/01/in-pursuit-of-planet-nine.
- Niikura, et al. “Constraints on Earth-Mass Primordial Black Holes from OGLE 5-Year Microlensing Events.” ArXiv.org, 21 Apr. 2019, arxiv.org/abs/1901.07120.
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