Possible evidence of existence of Planet 9?

[shemp]

Evidence of controversial Planet 9 uncovered in sky surveys taken 23 years apart

If the object really is Planet Nine, it would be larger than Neptune and exist 700 times further from the sun than Earth.

www.space.com

The best candidate yet for the elusive Planet Nine has been spotted in two deep infrared surveys taken 23 years apart. If this mystery object really is Planet Nine, it would have a mass greater than Neptune, and currently be about 700 times farther from the sun than Earth is.

The possibility of additional planets in our solar system has been proposed many times, going under names such as "Planet X," because experts thought the concept of an extra planet in our vicinity of the cosmos could explain a perceived regularity in mass extinctions on Earth. Perhaps, they said, the periodic influx of comets that impact Earth are pushed our way by an unseen planet. However, the supposed periodicity in mass extinctions has not held up to scrutiny, and so the need for that particular Planet X has gone away. This brings us to Planet Nine.

Planet Nine is unrelated to the Planet X concept, and rather put forward in 2016 by Michael Brown and Konstantin Batygin of the California Institute of Technology to explain an unusual bunching of orbits of some objects in the Kuiper Belt, such as Sedna. This proposed Planet Nine would be more massive than Earth, and orbit on a highly eccentric path that takes it hundreds of astronomical units from the sun (one astronomical unit is the distance between Earth and the sun). That far away, it would be extremely difficult to detect.

Now, a team led by astronomer Terry Long Phan of the National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan has delved into the archives of two far-infrared all-sky surveys in search of Planet Nine — and incredibly, they have found something that could possibly be Planet Nine.

The Infrared Astronomy Satellite, IRAS, launched in 1983 and surveyed the universe for almost a year before being decommissioned. Then, in 2006, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched AKARI, another infrared astronomy satellite that was active between 2006 and 2011.

TL/DR: A team claims to have found evidence of Planet 9 by comparing two far-infrared surveys 23 years apart. They claim it is a Neptune-sized body about 700 AU from the Sun.

We'll see. Not jumping on the bandwagon yet.

 

[gabeygoat]

They should name it Pluto

 

[PitPat]

Evidence of controversial Planet 9 uncovered in sky surveys taken 23 years apart

If the object really is Planet Nine, it would be larger than Neptune and exist 700 times further from the sun than Earth.

www.space.com

TL/DR: A team claims to have found evidence of Planet 9 by comparing two far-infrared surveys 23 years apart. They claim it is a Neptune-sized body about 700 AU from the Sun.

We'll see. Not jumping on the bandwagon yet.

Take your protein pills and put your helmet on
Ground Control to Major Tom (ten, nine, eight, seven, six)
Commencing countdown, engines on (five, four, three, two)
Check ignition and may God's love be with you (one, lift off)

That's about how long it will take before there's a Uranus Number Two joke.

Most importantly, who gets the naming rights?

 

[SteveAitch]

They should name it Pluto

Not Nibiru?

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Rupert

 

[The Great Zaganza]

This would explain why my horoscopes are always wron

 

[catsmate]

Not Nibiru?

I favour Ix.

 

[Puppycow]

Not likely to be the planet 9 they are looking for.

Astronomers spot candidate for potential ninth planet far beyond Neptune

Researchers have found a candidate for the hypothetical Planet Nine, which could be an undiscovered giant planet way out in our solar system. However, as with all ninth planet research, the new findings were met with some scepticism.

www.livescience.com

Mike Brown, an astronomer at Caltech who first proposed the Planet Nine hypothesis with a colleague in 2016, isn't convinced that the infrared dots correspond to the elusive planet. Brown wasn't involved in the study, but calculated the orbit of the infrared signal and found that the object would be tilted about 120 degrees from the Solar System's plane, Science reported. That tilt is much greater than Planet Nine's predicted tilt of around 15 to 20 degrees, and also means this object would be orbiting in a different direction from the known planets, which all sit roughly on the same plane.

This mismatch "doesn't mean it's not there, but it means it's not Planet Nine," Brown told Science. "I don't think this planet would have any of the effects on the Solar System that we think we're seeing."

Maybe they found something, but it doesn't seem to correspond to what Mike Brown predicted.