Next candidate for ninth planet found at the edge of the solar system
The ongoing search for an additional planet at the solar system's edge has identified a new candidate, potentially challenging previous predictions.
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A research team from Taiwan, Japan and Australia claims to have found direct evidence of a ninth planet at the outermost edge of the solar system. This is the result of a research article that has now become public and has been accepted for publication in a specialist journal. The group found what they were looking for in data from two space telescopes that stopped working 14 and more than 44 years ago respectively. The team searched their infrared images for objects that had moved sufficiently in the night sky between the two missions. And they discovered the candidate.
Doubts from the experts
As the team led by Terry Long Phan from Taiwan's Tsing Hua National University explains, there are 23 years between the two data sets being compared. They were collected by the long-inactive Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS), launched in 1983, and by Akari from Japan in 2006. The search was for objects that had moved slowly in the infrared spectrum between the two surveys. Using their criteria, they found 13 such pairs, one of which remained after a visual inspection – the candidate for Planet 9 that has now been presented. However, the available data is not sufficient to determine the exact orbit of the object. Further observations are needed for this.
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Since Pluto has not been considered the ninth planet in the solar system for almost 20 years, there has been speculation for years about an even more distant celestial body that could take on this role. Astronomers Mike Brown and Konstantin Batygin from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in particular have been conducting extensive research on the subject and have repeatedly presented papers on the subject. Brown has now pointed out to the scientific journal Science that the discovery now reported points to an object that would be much further away from the sun than calculated for "Planet 9". This does not mean that the celestial body does not exist, but it would not be the planet for which he is collecting evidence.
Brown also analyzed the available data on the alleged celestial body and determined that its orbit around the sun would be so extremely inclined that it would run counter to the other planets. Ironically, if the discovery is confirmed, the celestial body would also definitively prove that Brown's "Planet 9" does not exist. Because both objects could not exist without destabilizing their respective orbits, Brown explains: "It's kind of funny that a research paper that claims to have found a candidate for the ninth planet has actually discovered something that would basically prove that we were wrong all along," Science quotes him as saying.
Waiting for the world's largest digital camera
However, there is no final verdict on the supposed find. Science also points out that there are astronomers who believe that the unusual orbits of objects behind Neptune could be explained without another planet. However, if there really is a ninth planet far out at the edge of the solar system, we could possibly find it soon. According to the report, Brown and Batygin are convinced that the Vera C. Rubin Observatory with the world's largest digital camera should then be able to detect it. The instrument is due to begin its research work in the middle of the year.
(mho)
