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Astronomy

Our Solar System May Have A Ninth Planet

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
January 20, 2016
Filed under
Our Solar System May Have A Ninth Planet

Researchers Find Evidence of a Real Ninth Planet, Caltech
“Caltech researchers have found evidence of a giant planet tracing a bizarre, highly elongated orbit in the distant solar system. The object, which the researchers have nicknamed Planet Nine, has a mass about 10 times that of Earth and orbits about 20 times farther from the Sun on average than does Neptune (which orbits the Sun at an average distance of 2.8 billion miles). In fact, it would take this new planet between 10,000 and 20,000 years to make just one full orbit around the Sun. The researchers, Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown, discovered the planet’s existence through mathematical modeling and computer simulations but have not yet observed the object directly.”

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

56 responses to “Our Solar System May Have A Ninth Planet”

  1. Yale S says:
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    There is evidence that the solar system was once quite different than we find it today, The planets were flung into their current orbits by the passage of one of the gas giants. “Planet 9” might be one that got tossed almost out of the system. Or possible its a captured exoplanet, or.. doesn’t exist. or… its something else.

  2. EtOH says:
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    The case for this planet is compelling, and its hard to come up with a more persuasive advocate on the subject than Mike Brown. But since the legendary discovery of Neptune by anomalies in the orbit of Uranus, a number of planets have been “discovered” based on the orbits of others, yet none of them have ever turned up, and some are disproved outright. I wish him luck in this case, having been instrumental in dethroning Pluto, it would be fitting for him to find a replacement.

  3. Byron says:
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    We’ve already got a ninth planet – it’s called PLUTO!

    Mike Brown was, IIRC, a part of the crowd that demoted Pluto from planet status.

    • Mark Friedenbach says:
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      What? Nonsense! You and I both know Pluto is the TENTH planet. Don’t forget about Ceres!

    • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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      It’s either the 9th or it’s more like the 19th. If Pluto is a planet, then so are Ceres, Sedna, Eris, Haumea, Makemake, etc.

  4. Jafafa Hots says:
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    Oh GREAT. 🙁
    When I was in my teens, recovering from a severe accident with permanently disabling injuries, Voyager was going on. I told myself I need to hang on until Saturn, Uranus, then Neptune… and then maybe I could hope for something for Pluto. Also wanted to see Ceres.
    Here I am in my unhealthy gray age, having made it despite pain every day over these decades, thinking I had done it, and you people have to go discovering NEW things.
    Can’t you let it rest? I don’t think I can hang on until I’m 130 or however long it will be before something can be budgeted, built, launched and arrive.
    Presuming this actually exists.

    This discovery crap has got to stop!

    • MarcNBarrett says:
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      You may have to hang on a lot longer than that. Maybe until you are 300 or older. Sounds like this thing is very far away. It took 10 years for a fast probe on an express route to get to Pluto. Sounds like this thing is about 15 times further away than Pluto? (20 times Neptune’s distance, don’t know have that translates to Pluto’s distance)

      • EtOH says:
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        Its purported orbit goes as close as 200 AU, but if it exists, it probably doesn’t spend much of its time there (which is why they aren’t searching in that direction). If we were lucky enough to catch it at 300 AU distant, we could get there in 15 years with a probe that crossed the orbit of neptune at 95 km/s. The fastest previous probe to exit the solar system (or did it?), Voyager 1, did so at 17 km/s. So yeah, if we can find it, we have some work to do on propulsion and power sources before we can even think about launching a mission.

      • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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        Ad Astra did a study for a probe with a 2 to 8 megawatt nuclear reactor powered VASIMR engine that could get out to 1000 AU within 30 years.

        Yeah, I know it would take probably ~20 years of dedicated R&D to design and make a space-rated nuclear reactor of that power range. But it is possible.

        And it probably is the best bet for getting a probe there quickly, if doing so was deemed a top scientific priority.

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      It is indeed a great time to be alive.

  5. John Adley says:
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    Once upon a time, when someone discovered something, he had to painstakingly locate the object, measure the orbit and let others to independently check his result. Now, you just need to say “mathematical calculations and computer modeling” and that’s enough to call the press to brag about it as a major discovery…

    • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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      The planet Neptune was mathematically predicted before it was directly observed.

      • John Adley says:
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        You miss the point. There is nothing wrong with using celestial dynamics calculations, which is a mature technique well mastered by people of the 19th century. However, it is very possible the data they use has error, or their model is not the only solution. The only way to tell if the model is correct is to check with observations. People nowadays seem to forget what science is all about….

        • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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          And that’s why scientists publish their work – so it can be reviewed by others who may show it was in error. This is, however, a pretty important paper, which is why it has gotten so much publicity. I look forward to the observations in the coming years which will either show it to be right or wrong. Either way, we will discover many more KBOs and that is exciting in its own right.

          • John Adley says:
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            The publicity is created by the authors and Caltech. You simply can’t use the publicity to justify the importance of the research.

          • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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            I don’t. It’s important regardless of the amount of publicity it gets.

          • John Adley says:
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            Nowadays the perceived importance of a scientific paper is best reflected by the journal the paper appears in. I am sure the paper has either been rejected by Science or Nature, or the author never think their work is of any general interest and importance that worth a try at these high profile journals. They can’t even get it published in fast communication letter journals, that says something about what experts in the field think. The paper is still interesting to read, and researchers in the field of Kuiper belt objects can learn something from it, but that’s a different story.

          • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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            Percieved? By whom?

            Well, the paper can be read here:

            http://iopscience.iop.org/a

            As you can see, it was submitted to The Astronomical Journal. I understand that it is one of the premier journals for astronomy in the world. I don’t know how important that makes it to you, perhaps you can tell me.

          • John Adley says:
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            Yes, I am familiar with the Journal. The review process of the journal is far less rigorous than Nature, Science or PRL, but is still widely read. The paper is decent as far as I can tell. It is interesting of course, and I am sure there are other competing models as well.

          • fcrary says:
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            Actually, the review process for Science and AJ is very similar. Science does not do significantly more rigorous technical reviews. The difference is that they have editorial policies to filter out papers which they do not consider Earth-shaking news to a broad audience.

          • John Adley says:
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            Yes, the editor will reject most of the submissions to Science without peer review. Papers that are sent for review are reviewed by more than 2 independent reviewers. Papers sent to AJ (as long as the topic is not totally insane) will be sent for peer review. There is usually only 1 review and if the reviewer rejects the paper the authors are allowed to a second opinion. I wouldn’t consider the difference between AJ and Science very similar.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            Nope.

          • fcrary says:
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            Have you ever published in Science or Nature? Or tried to? Most people who have know how restrictive their editorial policies are (especially, according to some, for physical sciences.) Generally, people don’t bother trying, even if the work is of general interest. There is no reason to think this paper was submitted Science or Nature and rejected, nor to think the authors considered it uninteresting to non-specialists.

            I can’t see why they would even consider submitting to a letters journal. The space restrictions typically keep authors from going into as much detail as they’d like. So people only submit when a quick turn-around is important. Since this subject will require years, if not decades, of follow-up observations, that doesn’t seem relevant.

            Astronomical Journal sounds like the right place for this. It’s the main journal for observational astronomy (of all sorts, not just studies of the Kuiper belt.) That probably the desired audience, since the authors said they want to interest astronomers in searching for this possible planet.

          • John Adley says:
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            Everyone knows if there is a discovery of a new planet, the first place to chose for publication is nature and science. Yes, the standards are high, and hard to get through, and many complain editorial bias, that’s why they are prestigious. Just look at the impact factor of these journals. The excuses you gave are common, but in almost all cases just sour grapes.

          • fcrary says:
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            Well, I can’t honestly admit to sour grapes feelings about Science or Nature: I’ve published a first author paper in Nature, and about half a dozen papers in one or the other as a co-authror. I’ve also advised people to submit good papers, of high general interest and impact, to other journals.

            In this case, the authors are not claiming a discovery. Their statements are pretty clear.about that. Discovering a new planet.should definitely go to Science or Nature. But submitting a prediction to those journals wouldn’t make sense to me.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            “I’ve published a first author paper in Nature”.

            Well. There goes the neighborhood 🙂

            That would be work on Saturn’s aurorae. We are gonna need you on that trip out to X.

    • Michael Spencer says:
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      The authors aren’t claiming a discovery. They are offering a prediction. Science at work.

      • John Adley says:
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        There are plenty of places to publish their predictions, and other astronomers who are interested can search for the object. Any self respect scientist won’t call up the media at this stage.

        • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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          They didn’t call up the media. They published their paper in The Astronomical Journal.

          http://iopscience.iop.org/a

          Caltech, where they work, also issued a very interesting article.

          http://www.caltech.edu/news

          However, since it is a major prediction and pretty well supported by the available evidence, the media has had a bit of a field day. The media tends to do that. It’s just like when there’s media buzz about life on mars every time NASA has a press release about new findings on Mars.

          • John Adley says:
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            Call up Caltech media office is the same as call up the media. All press releases are done through institutions. Without the authors notifying the media office themselves, do you think the media people at Caltech read all the scientific journals?

          • ReSpaceAge says:
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            Why would you want cool possible info like this to be hidden from the public? If you want more people interested in science they should be aware of the ideas.
            True or false this is interesting news and fun to watch.

            Don’t understand your elitism logic????

          • John Adley says:
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            If science is done with no dignity, then what you get is entertainment. Coolness is never part of science and should not be.The only thing matters to science is being right. WIthout experiment, there is no way to know.

          • fcrary says:
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            Just to point out something which might disturb you, some NASA missions require scientists involved to keep media relations informed about important publications. To the best of my knowledge, universities have no similar requirements. So that wouldn’t be an issue here. But there is such a thing as department and.university politics, and some subtle/unconscious pressure to make a big.deal about results (and in a manner that non-specialtists would notice, since, for example, few professors of chemistry read every paper in Astronomical Journal.)

    • Ben Russell-Gough says:
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      Well, that’s not strictly true. Neptune, for example, was a mathematical proposition long before it was visually detected.

      • John Adley says:
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        You missed the point. Only the actual discovery of the planet is news worthy, someone made some speculation is not. This is the case simply because most of the speculations are experimentally proved wrong.

        • Ben Russell-Gough says:
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          I really think that you are complaining about nothing and choosing to strike out at the wrong people.

          In the end, it is the media that chooses how they report these things. What do you really want? The team to demand a press-conference where they correct all the exaggerated stories? That would get exactly how man seconds of air-time at the end of just one news segment? Just let it go.

          • John Adley says:
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            Strike out at the wrong people? ? Now you are speaking like a gang member.

            The media has no brain, it reports whatever you feed them, if you put Caltech in front of your name.

            The importance if this work is determined by the scientific community,not by how much media you gets.

          • ReSpaceAge says:
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            Importance?

            Things like how we measure global warming and deal with its consequences is important Science.

            Whether or not there is a giant object wayyyyy out there, not so much.

          • John Adley says:
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            That’s your opinion.

          • AgingWatcher says:
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            I’ve known quite a few enterprising reporters who’d very effectively dispute the “the media has no brain” assertion.

          • Michael Spencer says:
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            That wouldn’t make them correct however.

          • John Adley says:
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            Unfortunately I haven’t seen the writing such reporters yet. All I read in the media are extremely superficial and overblown statements, at least in my field.

          • John Adley says:
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            The best way to dispute my case is let the media take a CT.

    • DrStrLove says:
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      I have to say I am somewhat bemused by your insistence in your critique of these authors given the alias that you have chosen for yourself. I recall there were two papers posted in ‘Annalen der Physik’ : one in1905, that one was later named ‘Spezielle Relativitaetstheorie’ and another one in 1917 named ‘Allgemeine Relativitaetstheorie’.The author was one Albert Einstein. At least the latter paper caused an immediate storm in the science community and in the international press, while except for the intriguing explanation of the movement of Mercury’s perihelion there where only suggestions of how the theory could be checked observationally or experimentally. Given your position on the ethics of publishing wild theoretical calculations I am tempted to respectfully propose you changing your alias to: not-einstein.

      • John Adley says:
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        Thank you for bring this up. Obviously you don’t see the difference between a revolutionary idea in physics and an ad hoc mundane celestial mechanical model. It is the revolution idea that caused the “storm” in the scientific community. Einstein’s popularity in general public however, came after Eddington’s observations. This is very different from what happened in the Caltech 9th planet speculation case, where the authors call up the media about their “discovery” without experimental test to get 5 min of fame. I hope I made my point clearer to you. This is not a matter to be bemused, and I am confounded why you find it to be. Sigh…

  6. Robert Rice says:
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    Nibiru

    Just saying

  7. ProfSWhiplash says:
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    I’m rather iffy on the idea that this – as other articles more directly propose – is a Neptune type gas giant. Unless there is some really active thermodynamics (nuclear or otherwise) at work, a planetary body that far out would see almost no energy from the sun (waaaaaay less than what Pluto sees),

    it’s surface would surely be chilled to near absolute zero — or at least be cold enough such that there’s no free gases to speak of, but rather just liquid or maybe only solid form. An absolute rock of ice.

    • EtOH says:
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      The larger a planet gets, the harder it is for it to get rid of heat from its formation, + heat from radioactive decay. The moon and mars for the most part managed it. Earth is only really cool on the surface, and planets like neptune, while they have very cold upper atmospheres, emit significantly more heat than they receive from the sun. A super-earth to neptune sized planet would have enough internal heat to keep a gaseous atmosphere (and would still get pretty hot as you dove down). Assuming an atmosphere similar to the ice giants, it might get cold enough in the very upper atmosphere to form hydrogen clouds, but the helium (of which there is usually a lot) would definitely stay gaseous.

    • fcrary says:
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      As someone else.noted, internal heat is an issue. But the decrease in temperature with distance from the Sun is also less than you.might expect. Radiated heat goes as the fourth power of temperature. Solar.flux.goes as.the square of distance. So, for a passive surface, temperature only drops.as the square root of.distance. 25 times farther from the Sun would only mean a factor of five in temperature.

      Of course, a factor of five down from Pluto’s temperature is.extremely cold. Low enough that the 3 K cosmic background might also add significant heating. But I don’t think freezing out hydrogen or helium would be an issue. But you are right about extreme cold making such a planetary quite different from Uranus or Neptune.

      • EtOH says:
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        Thank you for pointing this out. For what it’s worth, 1/5 of pluto’s temp is about 9K. Hydrogen has a boiling point between ~10 and 30K, depending on the pressure. So there could be hydrogen clouds, depending on the details of heat transport in the upper atmosphere of this planet. Which may or may not actually exist. Ok, that’s probably enough speculation.

  8. Lucid_Capitalist says:
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    We already have a ton of amazing moons to explore in the Solar system. This seems like a really huge bonus if it has some too.

    Does being further out lessen the material available for a diverse moon system we see closer in? Or does being out there actually increase the material because of the Kuiper belt?

    • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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      Many of the Kuiper Belt Objects we’ve seen so far have moons, and it would be reasonable to expect that this one will, as well. Part of the reason why this is is because the outer solar system is much further away from the gravitational influence of the Sun and the perturbing influence of the other planets. Another way of saying this is that each individual KBO has a larger Hill Sphere (region of gravitational dominance) than it would in the inner solar system. For example, tiny Pluto’s Hill Sphere is about 5 times the size of the Earth’s Hill sphere, because it is so much further away from the Sun.

      The theoretical Planet Nine would be much more massive than the Earth and is also much further from the Sun – its Hill Sphere would be vast. I think it would be surprising if it did not have at least one moon, and even several could be expected.

  9. mdocur01 says:
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    When would they actually name the planet? Is it when direct observation is made?

    • Hug Doug ✓ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ says:
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      It must be found first. The discoverer(s) then can submit a name to the IAU.

    • fcrary says:
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      It would take multiple observations over two or three oppositions, just to officially exist. And then, enough additional data to prove it qualifies as a “planet”.