Race to discover Planet Nine using astronomy and new computational techniques
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Re: Race to discover Planet Nine using astronomy and new computational techniques
#2A nice update in the search for Planet Nine that touches on a lot of new computational, survey-based, and modeling efforts to localize the planet. Great level of detail.
Re: Race to discover Planet Nine using astronomy and new computational techniques
#3Noob question: Why isn't it passing in front of stars? Are we seeing a sequential dimming of occluded stars along the plane of the ecliptic?
Re: Race to discover Planet Nine using astronomy and new computational techniques
#4Noob question: Why isn't it passing in front of stars? Are we seeing a sequential dimming of occluded stars along the plane of the ecliptic?
The odds of catching an unknown planet dimming a star are (pardon the pun) astronomical.
Even the New Horizons team needed a lot of effort to catch their new target passing in front of a star [1]. Granted, Planet Nine is a bigger target, but the odds are still pretty low.
[1] "NASA’s New Horizons Team Strikes Gold in Argentina" https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-s-new-horizons-team-strike...
Re: Race to discover Planet Nine using astronomy and new computational techniques
#5Noob question: Why isn't it passing in front of stars? Are we seeing a sequential dimming of occluded stars along the plane of the ecliptic?
My intuition suggests that a planet far out and small would be very difficult to detect by its occlusion.
This page calculates that Pluto for instance spans only 3 pixels at the Hubble space telescopes resolution: http://www.planetary.org/blogs/emily-lakdawalla/2013/0214101...
Re: Race to discover Planet Nine using astronomy and new computational techniques
#6I hope I get to see some New Horizons-esque images of it by the time I'm old and grey.
Imagine its moons. Does it have rings? Does it have Trojans? Is it another line of defence, a remote cosmic vacuum cleaner, like Jupiter? Maybe Clarke's monolith lurks in its orbit.
I can't wait to find out.
Re: Race to discover Planet Nine using astronomy and new computational techniques
#7Noob question: Why isn't it passing in front of stars? Are we seeing a sequential dimming of occluded stars along the plane of the ecliptic?
p9 is not believed to be aligned with the ecliptic. The most recent article I've seen estimates it to be inclined around 30° relative
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/oct/19/planet-nine-...
Re: Race to discover Planet Nine using astronomy and new computational techniques
#8What do you define as a planet though?
If you consider our sun a frame of reference, you might find that technically some far away objects bigger than the sun have complex periodical movements around the sun.
Re: Race to discover Planet Nine using astronomy and new computational techniques
#9Noob question: Why isn't it passing in front of stars? Are we seeing a sequential dimming of occluded stars along the plane of the ecliptic?
As other repliers have said, this sort of thing is very rare. Trans-Neptunian Objects are so far away that their visible size is absolutely tiny, so occulations are rare and last for maybe a second or so.
But! They do happen and are a great way to learn more about those objects as very briefly you can see something of them. The problem is that first you need to know the exact orbit, then you can predict occulations.
See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/(486958)_2014_MU69 for an example. It recently had some occulations that have helped better understand it.
Re: Race to discover Planet Nine using astronomy and new computational techniques
#10What do you define as a planet though? If you consider our sun a frame of reference, you might find that technically some far away objects bigger than the sun have complex periodical movements around the sun.
Are you suggesting that the galaxy revolves around the sun? Heresy!