[ad_1]
This hypothetical giant icy planet, presumably located beyond Pluto’s orbit, would have a diameter between two and four times that of Earth.
American astronomers have identified 17 orbital objects at the edge of the Solar System that could claim the role of hypothetical Planet Nine.
In early 2016, scientists Mike Brown and Konstantín Batygin, of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena (USA), described how the gravitational effect of this presumed frozen planet could explain the unusual orbits of a group of trans-Neptunian objects in la Kuiper belt and suggested possible parameters for its orbit.
The so-called Planet X is expected to have an elongated orbit with an orbital period of about 15,000 Earth years, about ten times the mass of the Earth and two to four times its diameter, which would place it in fifth place on the list of largest planets. large after Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
New research
To date, the search for Planet Nine has not been successful. Taking footprints of a space object 12 to 23 times larger than Pluto from the Sun is extremely difficult, so scientists continue to devise new methods to do so.
Astronomers Malena Rice and Gregory Laughlin of Yale University (Connecticut, USA) decided to use the “shift and stacking” method, which involves processing spatial observations. This technique had already been used in the past to locate new natural satellites in the solar system, but this is the first time it has been implemented on a large scale for a large area of space.
In their study, accepted by the Planetary Science Journal, the researchers used thousands of images from NASA’s Probing Satellite for Exoplanets in Transit (TESS) space telescope, which they positioned as if they were recording a panorama to combine the dim light from distant objects. cosmics that appear in the images.
In total, Rice and Laughlin detected 17 space objects that could correspond to the hypothetical Planet X. “If even one of these candidate objects were real, it would help us understand the dynamics of the outer solar system and the probable properties of Planet Nine,” he said. Rice in a statement posted on the Yale website.
Currently, the astronomer is verifying the “candidates” with the help of ground-based telescopes. Although she declares herself “agnostic” about the existence of the Ninth Planet, the scientist admits that “it would be nice if it were out there”.
If you liked it, share it with your friends!
Source link
