> Planet X

Ninth planet- mysterious object solar system: description, discovery, search for Planet 9, last news, Scientific research, the impact on the Kuiper belt.

Scientists at Caltech have received evidence that hints at the presence of Planet X. This is a hypothetical body whose size is comparable to Neptune, and the orbital path is extremely elongated and located beyond the boundary of Pluto. It is 10 times the mass of Earth and lives 20 times longer from the Sun than Neptune. It may take 10,000-20,000 years to pass the orbital route.

So far, all this is just a theory, because it was not possible to fix the object directly. But mathematical calculations could explain the orbits of other objects in the Kuiper belt.

Exploring Planet Nine

In January 2015, Caltech scientists Konstantin Batygin and Michael Brown announced the presence of a hypothetical giant planet with an unusually elongated orbital passage in the outer system. Their guess was based on a detailed mathematical and computer model.

The presence of such a large object could explain the unique orbits in the Kuiper belt. It is too early to talk about its real existence, but mathematical calculations look convincing.

The planet is capable of 10 times the mass of the earth, and the size converges with Neptune or Uranus. It lives 20 times further than Neptune and spends about 10,000-20,000 years on an orbital passage (Neptune has 165 years).

When Planet Nine Was Discovered

Planet X has not yet been fixed in direct observation, so scientists are arguing about its existence. The prediction is based on a mathematical model.

Name of the Ninth planet

The authors called it Planet Nine, but in fact the right to name will be given to someone who notices it in a direct review. Also called Planet X. If the world notices, then the name must be approved by the IAU. Traditionally, options are chosen among the Roman divine pantheon.

Where did the Planet Nine hints come from?

While exploring the Kuiper belt, scientists noticed that some objects follow orbital paths that cluster together. A detailed examination showed that a large planet could be hiding outside Pluto. It is her gravity that can affect other bodies.

Batygin and Brown plan to use the most powerful telescopes to find the planet. But at such a distance, all bodies will be weak, and the search will become more complicated.

A new planet has been discovered in the solar system. This discovery was made by a California astrophysicist technical university Konstantin Batygin. The author of the sensation admits that no one was specifically looking for the ninth planet. The discovery, which is destined to become the main thing in astronomy for two and a half centuries, as often happens, was made by accident.

The strange anomaly that led scientists to the discovery of the ninth planet

Konstantin was approached by his colleague, an astronomer from California, Michael Brown. He asked the astrophysicist to make calculations that would explain why some objects in the solar system behave in a strange way. It was about the Kuiper belt. This is the region farthest from the Sun. There is space debris left after: small asteroids, blocks of ice, star dust. It is from there that many comets come from that plow our system. Astronomers around the world have been following the Kuiper belt very closely for a long time, but only now an important discovery has been made.

If you examine the Kuiper belt, then this is a field of icy debris outside the orbit of Neptune. Most of them walk in very eccentric and elongated orbits, conditionally randomly oriented in space. But if you concentrate on the most distant orbits, those that are farthest away from the Sun at , you can see that they are all oriented in approximately the same direction and lie in approximately the same plane. It was this orbital alignment that seemed anomalous to scientists.

It was this anomaly that Konstantin Batygin was asked to explain from a mathematical point of view. The astrophysicist suggested that objects in the Kuiper belt are guided by an unknown large cosmic body. This gave astronomers their first clue in centuries. The atlas of the solar system, familiar to everyone, is incomplete. There must be another planet, and it's gigantic.

According to the new model, the ninth planet has a mass equal to ten, or twenty masses of the Earth, that is, it is comparable in principle to Uranus and Neptune. Knowing only the mass, it is impossible to accurately judge its composition. However, one can compare it with other planets and assume that the ninth planet was formed from the same materials as other planets with a similar mass.

After analyzing the data on the mass and size of the ninth planet, Konstantin Batygin suggested that, most likely, this is a gas giant, exactly the same as Uranus and Neptune.

Sumerian reference to the ninth planet

The mention that in the solar system there is a planet with an irregular orbit, different from all the others, is found among the ancient Sumerians. It was called Nibiru. The planet Nibiru, judging by the legends of the Sumerians, entered the solar system at a fairly high speed. She moved along an elongated epileptic orbit, moving away from the Sun at a considerable distance, then returning. The circulation period was 3600 years. So it follows from the chronicle of the Sumerians.

Sumerian history is carved on clay tablets that are almost 6,000 years old. It follows from them that once, on the territory of Mesopotamia, suddenly arose highly developed civilization. The Sumerians had very detailed knowledge of the cosmos. They believed that Nibiru was not a lifeless planet. It was inhabited by creatures similar to people - the Anunnaki. They arrived on Earth to. According to one version, the aliens needed the precious metal to save their planet, which was rapidly losing its atmosphere. Gold was crushed, turning it into virtually dust, and this allowed heat and light to linger on Nibiru, preserving the conditions for life.

For hundreds of thousands of years, the Anunnaki developed the deposits on their own, but then, as the Sumerian chronicles tell, there was an uprising of workers. The work was too hard. I had to. But the anthropoid apes that then lived on the planet were too primitive even for such work. According to myths, the Anunnaki went to. By mixing the DNA of earthlings and their own, they got a completely the new kind. They created more so that a person could do more difficult work than a monkey.

On Sumerian clay tablets, this process is depicted as two snakes intertwined. This symbol is very reminiscent of, and maybe this Sumerian myth explains one of the biggest historical mysteries. Why still can not find an intermediate link between the monkey and modern man. If you believe the ancients, then it simply cannot be. and ape are actually genetically distant from each other.

After all, even on our own planet, we find life in the most unexpected places and types. In the ocean at a depth of thousands of meters live creatures that can withstand tremendous pressure. And recently, scientists from Princeton University discovered that underground, at a depth of almost three kilometers, life is teeming. Bacteria live there, which use uranium ore as. If we record such amazing phenomena on earth, then what can we say about deep space? On the ninth planet? There, for example, it does not have to be an atmosphere, or it can be liquid, or so dense that the pressure there will exceed all conceivable limits.

When it comes to, first of all, we mean intelligent life. Who said that all beings in the universe, endowed with intelligence, must necessarily be like us?

Our science under the word life understands only the protein-nucleic form, the main "highlight" in which is the cell. If this cell does not exist, then there is no life. But it is another matter if by life we ​​understand something else. For example, Tsiolkovsky spoke about a radiant person. What it is? Reasonable, consisting of some kind of energy formations?

Perhaps someday we will be able to unravel these amazing riddles The universe, and perhaps we will never be allowed to do this ...

In 2006, Pluto was stripped of its status as the ninth planet in the solar system thanks to the efforts of one astronomer, Michael Brown. Together with his colleagues, he discovered, and then other dwarf planets far beyond the orbit of Neptune. Thus, he proved that Pluto is not remarkable and big enough to be called a full-fledged planet. However, now Brown and our compatriot Konstantin Batygin are claiming that the new Planet 9 is already almost open ... and that all that remains is to see it.

Yes, yes, no one has yet seen the “almost open” ninth planet of the solar system! In fact, its discovery is the fruit of long observations of the orbits of other planets. According to Kepler and Newton, the place of each planet in the solar system is determined by its characteristics, mainly by mass. And if the orbit does not correspond to the parameters of the planet or is generally anomalous, then it is influenced by some other, no less massive object. The first planet discovered by mathematical equations, and not live observations, was - in 1846 it was found at a place calculated by the French mathematician Urbain Le Verrier.

Moreover, the planets can influence each other very actively - in the past of the solar system they traveled hundreds of millions of kilometers, approaching and moving away from the Sun. The gas giants were especially distinguished here. In young planetary systems, they absorb all the embryos of the planets and hang close to the star - as close as Mercury. Because of this, they become very hot and become unstable. Scientists call such planets "hot Jupiters" or "hot Neptunes" - depending on their mass and size.

Troubled History of the Solar System

However, Jupiter, the largest and most influential planet, changed everything in the solar system. Initially appearing at a distance of 5 to 10 from the Sun, it provoked active collisions of scattered material in the protoplanetary disk around the star. This gave impetus to the creation of other gas giants, such as Saturn or Neptune, at distances equally close to the Sun.

However, the newly formed planets behaved "ungratefully", following the laws of gravity - they pushed their "parent" closer to the Sun, into the modern orbit of Mars. Thus, Jupiter invaded the inner part of the solar system. In other planetary systems, this part is the most saturated with matter and space objects. But the heavy tread of the mass of Jupiter scattered the embryos of planets and asteroids there, throwing them into the nuclear furnace of the Sun or throwing them to the outskirts of the system in the zone of modern and.

If not for Saturn, which bound Jupiter with an orbital resonance and did not bring it into a modern orbit, the gas giant could completely ruin the solar system, throwing out 99% of the planetary matter from it. However, his travels did not go unnoticed - so Neptune and Uranus changed their orbits, forming most of the long-period comets.

Ultimately, an unusual balance reigned in the solar planetary system - gas giants that form near the star ended up on the outskirts, and "solid planets" like the Earth migrated closer to the Sun. However, some astronomers believed that another planet was needed to achieve such a balance - and one massive enough to influence large Neptune and Uranus. It, Planet X, was searched for by many astronomers for a century and a half - and it seems that Brown and Batygin finally got close to it.

History of the search for planet X

After Le Verrier calculated Neptune from perturbations in Uranus's orbit, astronomers found that even its presence did not explain the features of the ice giant's orbit. For some time they tried to find another planet that could influence the last large objects of the solar system - however, they managed to find only Pluto, which, by mass and direction of the orbit, could not disturb larger bodies in any way. The issue of Uranus-Neptune anomalies was finally resolved by "", who measured the mass of Neptune in 1989 and thereby found that there are no contradictions in the orbits.

By that time, the power of telescopes had grown significantly, which allowed astronomers to look into the depths of the solar system. Many trans-Neptunian objects have been discovered - dwarf planets and large asteroids, whose closest orbital point is farther from the Sun than Neptune. So, in 2005, the already mentioned Eris was discovered, the second largest dwarf planet after Pluto. And in 2003, they found an object with diameters of over 2 thousand kilometers, which moves away from the Sun at a distance of 1.4 × 10 11 km - further than any large trans-Neptunian object! It soon acquired a whole family of "sednoids", isolated trans-Neptunian objects with similar characteristics.

The ninth planet - where and why?

Observing the newly discovered planetoids, astronomers C. Trujillo and S. Sheppard, colleagues, discovered an interesting pattern. Most of them have elongated, comet-like orbits that briefly come "close" to the Sun, at a distance of 40 to 70 astronomical units, and then move away for hundreds or even thousands of years. And the larger the object, the stronger its removal. In addition, the sednoids deviated from the Sun in the same direction.

Such a coincidence could be an accident, if we are talking about simple comets - over the billions of years of the history of the solar system, they were scattered by all the major planets, especially the already mentioned "travelers" Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune. However, for such a coincidence in the deviations of large objects, a very big planet, whose orbit would reach the Oort cloud.

Here Brown and Batygin distinguished themselves - by comparing the orbital characteristics of sednoids, they found mathematically that the probability of their random coincidence is only 0.007%. Scientists went further and compiled a computer model aimed at finding the characteristics of the planet, capable of changing the orbits of bodies located beyond Neptune. The data they received in January 2016 became the basis for the announcement of the pre-discovery of a new planet in the solar system.

Characteristics of Planet X

In his interviews, Brown claims that the probability of finding a new planet is 90%. However, until it is actually discovered, with the help of a telescope, it is too early to talk about the final discovery. However, estimates of Planet 9 have been published and will be used in future searches.

• The orbital parameters of Planet X will be mirrored to those of the sednoids - the planet's orbit will still be elongated and inclined relative to the plane of the main planets of the solar system, but directed in the opposite direction. Accordingly, the perihelion of the planet - the point of maximum approach to the Sun - will be 200 astronomical units at the nearest point, and the aphelion - the maximum distance - will reach 1200 astronomical units. This is even more than Sedna! A year on Planet 9 will last up to 20,000 Earth years - that's how long it may take to complete the entire orbit.

A planet far from the Sun is difficult to detect - this requires telescopes operating in the infrared spectrum, or powerful optical devices that can capture even the smallest sun glare on the surface. On infrared telescopes, work will move faster, but errors are possible - and on optical telescopes, the result will be reliable, albeit at the cost of time. The WISE Infrared Orbiting Telescope, which conducted broadband surveys in 2009, has not yet found Planet X, although it has provided fairly detailed images.

Therefore, Brown, Batygin and other astronomers are planning to find it using the Subaru telescope in the Hawaiian Islands, which is considered one of the largest and highest quality in the world - the diameter of its main mirror exceeds 8 meters! In addition, it is capable of operating both in the optical and in the infrared ranges of light. But even with such a tool, it will take scientists at least 5 years to put an end to the issue of Planet X.

Astronomers Mike Brown and Konstantin Batygin of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena on the discovery of a candidate for the ninth planet of the solar system outside the orbit of Pluto. The find may become one of the most sensational in the current decade, comparable to the discovery of a new continent on Earth. The results of the search for Planet X, the authors published in The Astronomical Journal. Science News and Nature News briefly talk about them.

What was discovered

Planet X is an object the size of Neptune and ten times the mass of the Earth. The celestial body revolves around the Sun in a highly elongated and inclined orbit with a period of 15 thousand years. The closest distance between the Sun and Planet X is 200 astronomical units (that's seven times the distance between Neptune and the star), and the maximum is estimated at 600-1200 astronomical units. This brings the object's orbit out of the Kuiper Belt, where Pluto is located, towards the Oort Cloud.

Why the ninth planet

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) definition of a planet applies only to celestial bodies in the solar system. According to it, a rounded massive body is considered a planet, having cleared the vicinity of its orbit from a large number of smaller bodies. The IAU officially recognizes the existence of five dwarf planets. One of them (Ceres) is located in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, others (Pluto, Eris, Makemake and Haumea) are beyond the orbit of Neptune. The largest of them is Pluto.

In total, there are eight planets in the solar system, according to the IAU. The largest and most massive of them is Jupiter. Pluto, by decision of the IAU in 2006, ceased to be considered a planet, since it does not meet one of the criteria that determines it (the dominance of its orbit in space). So far, astronomers have discovered more than 40 dwarf planet candidates. Scientists estimate that there may be more than two thousand dwarf planets in the solar system, of which 200 are located within the Kuiper belt (at a distance of 30 to 55 astronomical units from the Sun). The rest are outside of it.

The definition of a planet as a dwarf one is controversial among scientists. In particular, dimensions can play a decisive role in this case. celestial body. Planet X, being the fifth in mass and size of the celestial body of the solar system known to science, certainly cannot be considered a dwarf. The unusual orbit and origin of Planet X may lead to a revision of the IAU definition of a dwarf planet.

Image: NASA / JPL-CALTECH

How they opened

The existence of Planet X was suspected in 2014. Then Chadwick Trujillo from the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii and Scott Sheppard from the Carnegie Institution in Washington published an article in Nature, where they reported the discovery at a distance of 80 AU (Pluto is 48 AU from the Sun) from the Sun of the trans-Neptunian object 2012 VP113. In their work, astronomers also suggested that at a distance of 250 astronomical units from the star there is a planet larger than the Earth.

Observer astronomer Brown and computer astronomy expert Batygin decided to refute Trujillo and Sheppard's data. But it turned out differently. Scientists have discovered a new planet by analyzing data on its gravitational effects on other celestial bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. Among them, in particular, is the candidate for the dwarf planet Sedna discovered in 2003 by Brown, Trujillo and David Rabinowitz. Computer modeling and theoretical calculations carried out by Brown and Batygin explain the results of observations by the existence of Planet X. Astronomers estimate the probability of error in their conclusions at 0.007 percent.

How Planet X Came to Be

Astronomers cannot yet give an exact answer to the question of the origin of Planet X. They tend to the following hypothesis. At the dawn of the existence of the solar system, there were five large protoplanets, four of which formed modern Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. However, about three million years after their birth, the gravity of the first two celestial bodies threw Protoplanet X out of the orbit of Neptune.

Structure and composition of Planet X

The origin of Planet X suggests that it was originally similar to the ice giants Uranus and Neptune. The latter is 17 times heavier than the Earth, and its diameter is four times greater than that of the Blue Planet. Uranus and Neptune are classified as ice giants. Their atmosphere consists of gases (hydrogen, helium and hydrocarbons) and ice particles (water, ammonia and methane). Under the atmosphere of the giants is a mantle of water, ammonia and methane ice, under which lies a solid core of metals, silicates and ice. Planet X may have a similar core and mantle without a dense atmosphere.

Criticism

The celestial mechanic Alessandro Morbidelli from Nice acted as a referent for the work of scientists in The Astronomical Journal. He was optimistic about the chances of the discovery of Planet X by astronomers Brown and Batygin. Last but not least - thanks to the authority of scientists. Planetologist Hal Levison from Colorado was skeptical about the work of colleagues, citing the haste of Brown and Batygin's conclusions and the need for further verification. As the discoverers of Planet X themselves note, astronomers will believe in their discovery only when they can observe the planet through a telescope.

What's next

To detect Planet X, astronomers have booked time at Japan's Subaru Observatory in Hawaii. Trujillo and Sheppard will compete in the search for the planet with scientists. Confirmation of the existence of a celestial body can take up to five years. If discovered, the object could become the ninth planet in the solar system. Earlier searches for Planet X in the solar system led scientists to discover Neptune (in 1864) and Pluto (in 1930). There is little doubt that the existence of a ninth planet will be confirmed.