Astronomers propose network of telescopes to locate mysterious Planet IX
Illustration of Planet Nine, dark and cold, far from the known planets of the Solar System. © Generated on Bing Creator by Brice Haziza
Planet Nine (or IX) has been sought after for many years. The greatest experts on planetary movements, such as Mike Brownnicknamed Pluto Killer, because he was the man who brought about the demotion of Pluto to the rank of dwarf planet, Konstantin Batygin or even the planetologist Alessandro Morbidelliregularly publish theoretical studies showing that the existence of this distant planet leaves little doubt for them. One of the arguments pleading in this direction, for example, is the inclination of trans-Neptunian objects which is difficult to explain without it.
It must be said that this ninth planet would be approximately five to seven times more massive than the Earth and some 500 times further from the Sun! Yes, the Solar System is very vast, much larger than the image we get when we stop at Pluto. In fact, it would be about 10,000,000,000,000 km in radius, or about one light year.
Harder than determining the presence of exoplanets around a star
Observing such a planet, even more massive than our Earth, so far from its star is a real challenge for astronomers. One might think that at a time when we know how to determine what the atmosphere of an exoplanet is made of, this would no longer pose a problem. And yet… Exoplanets are most often discovered according to the light they obscure from their sun or the modifications that their orbit induces on the movements of the latter. Here, that is not possible.
As for comparing with galaxies found by the James Webb Space Telescope billions of light years away, these are also two very different tasks. So what is this new idea?
A new strategy for tracking down the legendary Planet Nine
An array of 200 modest 40 cm telescopes would be ideal. THE stellar occultationsthat is to say when a body passes in front of a star relative to us, are a phenomenon already used, which made it possible, for example, to detect the presence of rings around the asteroid Chariklo. However, such a network spread over 10,000 km would offer several viewing angles of the same occultations, thus helping to precisely determine the size of the occulting object.
The authors claim to be able to detect 1,800 new trans-Neptunian objects with this method, in just 10 years. According to them, the network of telescopes would have no trouble detecting the existence of a body as massive as that of Planet IX. It is “a global effort”they specify in their study posted on arXiv. But a global effort with just 15 million euros budget to discover a new planet in the Solar System, the first since Neptune in 1846that wouldn’t be nothing!
