Scientists discuss evidence pointing to a ninth planet

The buzz over a massive new planet in the solar system has stirred up controversy among scientists from California Institute of Technology and NASA, over proving the planet’s existence through modern conjectures.

Although the researchers have not really laid eyes on the planet they have given it a name, “Planet Nine,” AKA Planet “X.”

In fact, Planet Nine is said to be ten times the size of earth and it orbits 20 times farther from the sun.

MHCC astronomy instructor Pat Hanrahan, shared that he also is on the fence with his belief on the existence of Planet X.

He made it clear that scientist do have ideas on where to search for the new discovered planet, but the problem is distance.

The recent discovery was made through a mathematical module that allows scientists to see farther than Neptune. Through that, they detected that objects in the Kuiper Belt – the field of icy objects and debris beyond Neptune – had orbits that were pointing in the same direction, showing the gravitational pull of an undetected planet.

“Almost all the larger Kuiper Belt objects that we’ve found so far are within about 100 Earth/Sun distance (AU),” Hanrahan said. “The proposed planet X may be as far as 1000 Earth/Sun distances and that makes it a huge challenge to find! Whether we find this out or not, there are certainly a lot more objects about the size of Pluto out there.”

This is fueling debate among scientists from NASA. They are emphasizing that the existence of the new planet has not yet been proven. But Caltech scientists have stated, “The new simulations support suspicions of a ninth planet first voiced in March 2014, when researchers noticed that a dozen objects far beyond Neptune all crossed the mid-plane of the solar system at roughly the same spot as their closest approach to the sun.

“Interactions with the known giant planets should have randomized those crossings by now. The probability of such a clustering happening by chance is just 0.007 percent, the new study finds,” the Caltech researchers noted.

Mt. Hood’s own, Hanrahan, said that he thinks something may be affecting the orbits of somewhere between four and 12 Kuiper Belt objects. If there truly are 12 affected objects, then there is a possibility that Planet X could exist.

Now, there’s also confusion among scientists over whether Neptune, too, is affected.

Even if there is a Planet Nine, Hanrahan said that it is certainly not a threat to Earth by potentially crashing into us.

“It could be sending more comets towards Earth but that’s the only thing that can cause (damage). It’s fun to think about,” he said of the possible discovery.

Advocate Staff