A Search for an unknown planet in our solar system It has inspired astronomers for over a century. Now a recent study suggests a possible new candidatethat the authors of the article dubbed Planet and.
The star was not directly, but inflated by the inclined orbits of some distant objects in the Kuiper belt – a large ring of cold bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. Something, the researchers say, must be these orbits and causing the slope.
“An explanation is the presence of an invisible planet, probably smaller than Earth and larger than Mercury, orbiting in the most distant regions of the solar system,” said lead author Amir Siraj, astrophysicist and doctoral student at the Department of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University.
“This article is not the discovery of a planet, but certainly the discovery of a riddle for which a body is the most likely solution.” Siraj and his co -authors reported the results in the magazine.
Planet Y is the latest in a series of hypothetical worlds in the solar system proposed in recent years, all with slightly different characteristics, but collectively accredited as possible inhabitants of the Kuiper belt – also Lar de Pluto, the old ninth -star to dwarf in 2006.
The reason for so many “ninth planet” candidates arise is that the place is a dark and distant region of difficult and incomplete observation. But these obstacles should change, as a new telescope, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, is about to start its 10 -year night sky survey.
“I think within two to three years we will have a definitive answer,” said Siraj. “If planet Y is in the field of view of the telescope, it can be found directly.”
An intense debate
Following the discovery of Neptune in 1846, astronomers continued to look for another star in the solar system, which in the early 20th century became known as Planet X, a name popularized by Percival Lowell. He suspected that anomalies in the orbits of Neptune and Uranus were caused by a distant body not yet discovered.
When Pluto was discovered in 1930, he was proclaimed as the ninth planet, initially considered planet X.
But soon it was realized that Pluto was too small to justify the irregularities. In the early 1990s, data from Voyager 2 probe revealed that Neptune had less mass than thought, explaining the disturbances without the need for a planet X.
The search was resumed in 2005, when three astronomers – including Caltech’s Mike Brown – discovered Éris, a slightly larger chick body than Pluto and also orbiting in the Kuiper belt.
This discovery led to the relegation of Pluto to the dwarf planet. In 2016, Brown and Konstantin Batygin published the hypothesis of a new star, the so -called planet nine.
This would be five to ten times the mass of the earth, orbiting far beyond Pluto, about 550 times the soil distance. Over the years, scientists have raised hypotheses about hidden bodies of varying sizes, from bodies from the size of Mars to a “Super Pluto”.
Siraj stated that the search for planet nine or planet Y is a heated debate in astronomy. “It is a very exciting discussion, and it was precisely this controversy that motivated us to investigate. We are lucky to live in a time when these discoveries can happen,” he said.
According to him, planet nine and planet Y are not mutually exclusive, and both may exist.
Siraj’s investigation into planet Y began about a year ago when he tried to determine if the Kuiper belt is flat.
“The stars of the solar system have small inclinations, but overall they follow the same plan, like grooves on a vinyl disk,” he said. The expectation was that the cold bodies besides Neptune showed the same guidance, but that was not what was observed.
“It was a big surprise to see that, besides about 80 times the soil distance, our system seems to be inclined in about 15 degrees. That was what motivated the hypothesis of planet Y,” he said.
“We tried to explain this inclination in other ways, but we came to the conclusion that a body is necessary. If it was something related to the formation of the solar system, or the result of the passage of a star, this inclination would have disappeared.”
Siraj and colleagues performed computational simulations including all known planets and a hypothetical planet. By adjusting the parameters, they realized that hypotheses like planet nine did not work for the model, and needed another body.
“Planet Y probably has between the mass of Mercury and that of Earth, orbiting 100 to 200 times the soil distance, tilted at least 10 degrees compared to other bodies,” he said.
In search of clarity
As the kuiper belt is difficult to observe, astronomers depend on the study of the orbits of a limited number of objects. In Siraj’s study, there were about 50 bodies – a small number, which makes the existence of planet Y uncertain.
“With these about 50 objects, statistical significance is between 96% and 98%,” he said. “It’s strong, but not definitive.”
This scenario should change with the beginning of the Vera Rubin Telescope mission, installed in Chile at 2,682 meters altitude and equipped with the largest digital camera in the world, capable of photographing the whole sky every three days.
“It’s really a feat of engineering,” said Siraj. “Basically, we’ll have a ‘movie’ of the universe, with a picture every three days. It’s the ideal survey to map the solar system and look for distant objects, including planets not yet seen.”
The study is a new way of investigating the subtle deformation of our external system, said Konstantin Batygin of Caltech, who studies planet nine, but did not participate in the research. “In the coming years, the Vera Rubin Observatory will reveal the dynamic structure of the external solar system with unprecedented clarity,” he said.
Samantha Lawler of the University of Regina also pointed out that the results are interesting but not definitive. “I don’t think there is good evidence for a large and distant planet causing the orbits of the Kuiper belt orbits,” he said.
“But there are promising evidence that there is a smaller body that is subtly deforming the orbits of some very distant objects.”
Patrcyk Sofia Lykawka of Kindai University in Japan added: “The idea that a planet of the size between mercury and the earth causes this inclination is plausible. This reinforces the hypothesis that there is a body not yet discovered in external regions of the solar system. In addition, it shows how crucial research is crucial, especially in the kuiper belt, as they keep the switches to understand how the system is kept to understand how the system Solar graduated for billions of years ago. ”
