In 2006, Pluto was stripped of its status as the ninth planet. 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 connected 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 the 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 further 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 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-opening new planet 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. Nevertheless, the calculated characteristics of Planet 9 have been published - they 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, which is 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 a 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 yet to detect Planet X, although it has provided fairly detailed images.
Therefore, Brown, Batygin and other astronomers plan to find it using the Subaru telescop 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.
Caltech scientists Michael Brown and Konstantin Batygin have provided evidence for the existence of a giant planet in the solar system, located even further from the Sun than Pluto.
The researchers reported that they have not yet been able to see it through a telescope. According to them, the planet was discovered when studying the movement of small celestial bodies in deep space. The mass of the celestial body is about 10 times the mass of the Earth, but scientists have yet to verify its existence.
Institute astronomers have only a rough idea of where the planet might be in the starry sky, and no doubt their suggestion will launch a campaign to find it.
"There are many telescopes on Earth theoretically capable of finding it. I really hope that now, after our announcement, people around the world will start looking for the ninth planet," said Michael Brown.
Elliptical orbit
According to scientists, space object is about 20 times farther from the Sun than Neptune, which is 4.5 billion km away.
Unlike the almost circular orbits of other planets in the Solar System, this object is supposed to move in an elliptical orbit, and a complete revolution around the Sun takes from 10 thousand to 20 thousand years.
Scientists have studied the movement of objects consisting mainly of ice in the Kuiper Belt. Pluto is in this belt.
The researchers noticed a certain location of some bodies in the Belt, in particular such large objects as Sedna and 2012 VP113. In their opinion, this can only be explained by the presence of an unknown large space object.
"All the most distant objects move in the same direction on an inexplicable trajectory, and we realized that the only explanation for this is the existence of a large, distant planet that holds them together as they orbit the Sun," Brown said.
Planet X
The idea of the existence of the so-called Planet X, located on the periphery of the solar system, has been discussed in scientific circles for more than 100 years. She is remembered and then forgotten.
The current speculation is of particular interest because of the study's lead author.
Brown specializes in finding distant objects, and it was his discovery of the dwarf planet Eris in the Kuiper Belt in 2005 that caused Pluto to lose planetary status a year later. Then it was assumed that Eris is slightly larger than Pluto, but now it has become clear that it is slightly smaller than it.
Researchers studying distant objects in the solar system have been speculating for some time on the possibility of a planet the size of Mars or Earth due to the size and shape of the planets in the Kuiper Belt. But until you can see the planet through a telescope, the idea of its existence will be perceived with skepticism.
The study by Michael Brown and Konstantin Batygin was published in the Astronomical Journal.
MOSCOW, March 17 - RIA Novosti, Tatyana Pichugina. The ninth planet from the Sun will be discovered in the next decade, according to American astronomers. It moves in an elliptical orbit in the Kuiper Belt, a little-studied region far beyond Neptune. The new data leaves little doubt that a super-Earth exists in the solar system.
Who draws the orbits
Man has been studying the solar system for more than a millennium, but there are still enough white spots. For example, in the 1980s, astronomers were enthusiastically looking for Nemesis - a dark star, partner of the Sun. She was supposed to call ecological catastrophe on Earth 65 million years ago when the dinosaurs died.
Pluto used to be considered the ninth planet of the solar system, but in 2006 it was deprived of this status, reclassified as a dwarf planet, in fact, an asteroid. The initiator was the American astronomer Michael Brown from the California Institute of Technology (USA). All this he described in the book "How I killed Pluto and why it was inevitable."
The search for a killer star ended in nothing, but ten years later they proved the existence of the Kuiper belt - an area where icy fragments of matter left after the formation of the solar system are concentrated. The largest are about nine hundred kilometers. In total, about two thousand celestial bodies were discovered there.
Brown purposefully explores the Kuiper belt, looking for other trans-Neptunian objects - that is, those that are further from the Sun than Neptune. He discovered 27 celestial bodies, including the dwarf planets Sedna and Eridu.
Among the trans-Neptunian objects there are anomalous ones, whose orbits are very elongated: their major semi-axes extend over 250 astronomical units (distances from the Sun to the Earth), however, the points of the orbits closest to the star are in the same region. To explain this oddity, Brown, along with his Caltech colleague Konstantin Batygin, put forward a hypothesis in 2016 about the existence of another planet in the outskirts of the solar system.
© CC0 / nagualdesign / CaltechSome bodies in the far Kuiper belt have elongated orbits, with perihelia concentrating in one place. The dotted line indicates the orbit of the hypothetical planet ninth predicted in 2016
© CC0 / nagualdesign / Caltech
Some bodies in the far Kuiper belt have elongated orbits, with perihelia concentrating in one place. The dotted line indicates the orbit of the hypothetical planet ninth predicted in 2016
Out of competition
Significant forces were thrown in search of a new planet, amateur astronomers were connected - to no avail. Nevertheless, the hypothesis was not discarded, on the contrary, now it seems even more reasonable. “We were worried that there would be a simpler or more natural explanation for the anomalies we see in the data, and that the Planet Nine hypothesis would soon be irrelevant. But this did not happen. The hypothesis has stood the test of time quite successfully,” writes Konstantin Batygin in his blog.
There are only two alternative versions that explain the anomalies in the orbits of the most distant Kuiper belt objects. The first is observational error. A new one by Brown and Batygin, published in January in The Astronomical Journal, is devoted to its analysis. Scientists have calculated the probability with which the orbits of these bodies look exactly as they are seen now, thanks to an error. The result is only two tenths of a percent. Conclusion: the observed oddities are statistically significant.
Another alternative is the existence of another massive disk in the solar system, consisting of icy planetesimals - the remnants of a protoplanetary disk whose gravity pulls the orbits of trans-Neptunian objects in the same way as an entire planet would. But, notes Michael Brown, this scenario is even more complex.
Super-Earth in the solar system?
The results of two years of searching for the ninth planet are summed up by Brown and Batygin, prepared jointly with colleagues from the University of Michigan for the journal "Physics Reports". Scientists reanalyzed all the facts, refined the characteristics of a hypothetical planet, performed numerical simulations and provided convincing evidence of its existence.
The ninth planet is two times smaller in all respects than it seemed three years ago, explains Batygin. The semi-major axis of its orbit is approximately 400-500 astronomical units, the eccentricity is 0.15-0.3 (an indicator of the contraction of the ellipse), the inclination is 20 degrees. The best simulation results are obtained when the mass of the planet is five times that of the Earth. In any case, ten Earth masses is the ceiling. For comparison: Neptune is 17.2 times heavier.
Judging by the characteristics, the ninth planet is very similar to a super-Earth - a special class of exoplanets often observed around other stars. Perhaps this celestial body did not really form here, but was captured by the Sun at the moment of approach to another star system. However, it is too early to raise the question of the origin of a hypothetical planet.
Wanderer's shelter
The magnitude, or brightness, of the new member of the planetary family is very small - 24-25 magnitudes. This is at the limit of the capabilities of earth technology. The object could have been detected by the Pan-STARRS telescope scanning the entire sky. However, there is a difficulty - the most distant point of the orbit of the celestial body, possibly intersects the plane milky way where there is a high concentration of stars. Against their background, it is difficult to distinguish anything.
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And here's how it happened.
Astronomers Mike Brown and Konstantin Batygin of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena reported the discovery of an object the size of Neptune, which is 10 times heavier than the Earth, outside the orbit of Pluto. The authors published the results of the search for Planet X in The Astronomical Journal, and Science News briefly talks about them.
The planet revolves around the Sun in an elongated orbit (and in a plane inclined relative to the Earth's orbit) with a period of 15 thousand years. Its chemical composition is similar to those of the gas giants Uranus and Neptune. According to Brown and Batygin, the object was knocked out of the protoplanetary disk near the Sun 4.5 billion years ago.
The nearest distance between the Sun and the detected object is 200 astronomical units (this is seven times the distance between Neptune and the star). The maximum removal of Planet X is estimated at 600-1200 astronomical units, which brings its orbit beyond the Kuiper belt, in which Pluto is located.
The referent of the work of scientists in The Astronomical Journal was the planetary scientist Michael Brown, who, together with colleagues in 2003, discovered the dwarf planet Sedna, which makes a complete revolution around the Sun in 11.4 thousand years. The specialist was optimistic about the chances of the discovery of Planet X by Brown and Batygin.
Scientists have discovered a new planet by analyzing data on the gravitational perturbation it exerts on other celestial bodies. As Brown and Batygin note, astronomers will believe in their discovery when they can observe the planet through a telescope. To do this, they reserved time at the Japanese Subaru Observatory in Hawaii.
Confirmation of the existence of a celestial body will take five years. If discovered, the object could become the ninth planet in the solar system. The error probability Brown and Batygin estimate at 0.007 percent. Earlier searches for Planet X in the solar system led scientists to discover Neptune (in 1864) and Pluto (in 1930).
Mike Brown and Konstantin Batygin, Photo by Popular Science
But back in 2012, according to the calculations of an astronomer from Brazil, there is a rather large space object beyond the orbit of Neptune, which can be recognized as the ninth planet.
With such an assumption, an astronomer from the National Observatory of Brazil Rodney da Silva Gomes made. He drew attention to the deviation from the given calculations of the orbits of six Kuiper belt objects, among which the contender for the title of a dwarf planet is Sedna.
According to him, there are several explanations for the unusual behavior of some objects in the belt. The simplest is the existence of a large body, a planet that changes their orbits with its gravity.
