Planet Nine Existence? something is moving
Finding something without knowing where to look is not easy, and if it is not even certain that
the thing exists it becomes even more complicated. Know it well Michael Brown and Konstantin Batygin,
two astronomers rather convinced that in the extreme periphery of our solar system
is orbiting, never observed by anyone, a planet at least twice the size of Earth.
For years the two diehards argue that the existence of this "ninth planet" would help
to explain the strange similarities in the orbits of some objects that orbit
in the most remote part of our solar system. So far these are only theories and models of
celestial dynamics, discussed by an astronomical consensus divided so far equally between
enthusiasm and skepticism. So that for a long time are alternating studies in favor and studies that
instead want to demonstrate the inconsistency of the evidence. The most recent one, published one
year ago, believes for example that the ambitious hypothesis of Brown and Batygin is based on the
misunderstanding of a trivial statistical error. Let's see how things are going together. Will you?
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On February 18, 1930, the world became aware of the discovery of what at that time was considered
"the ninth planet of the solar system", searched for a long time by the young Clyde Tombaugh
and finally found on the photographic plates impressed by the fire of the 13-inch astrograph
of the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. After that momentous discovery,
for a long time no one looked for other objects orbiting beyond those remote distances.
After all, almost no one believed that there was something else to find since the planet
found by Clyde Tombaugh seemed to account in the best way of the alleged irregularities
found in the movement of Uranus and Neptune. Over the years, it became increasingly clear
that Pluto was not at all the massive planet that was believed to be and began to get the
idea that beyond the 40 astronomical units the solar system hides much more than we could see.
In 1992, a team of researchers led by American astronomer Chad Trujillo announced the finding
of the first transneptunian asteroid, establishing the presence of a second asteroidal belt
stretching 15 times farther than the one now known between Mars and Jupiter. A region that extends
beyond Pluto for billions of kilometers and that has taken the name "Kuiper belt" in honor of
Gerard Kuiper, the Dutch astronomer who in the fifties had theorized the existence.
The observations and discoveries that followed over the years led astronomers to estimate
that that huge reservoir of icy worlds could contain hundreds of thousands of objects with
dimensions of hundreds of kilometers. So, Pluto was no exception: there was a lot
more going on out there at the edge of our solar system. All you had to do was look.
To take up the challenge in the early years of this century was especially the astronomer
at Caltech Michael Brown, who in a short time discovered in that area also very large objects
such as Quouar, Sedna, Orcus, Makemake, Haumea, Gonggong... all planetoids with a diameter
between 1000 and 2000 km. A string of successes culminated in 2003 with the discovery of Eris:
a "planet" of the same size as Pluto. Paradoxically, it was precisely this crowding
of "planets" to decree in 2006 the downgrading of Pluto and Eris to the rank of "Dwarf Planet".
The decision, as you undoubtedly remember, was taken after a turbulent debate that surprisingly
saw the same Brown in the forefront in claiming the need to redefine the concept of "planet",
thus contributing to downgrade not only Pluto but also his Eris!
Since 2006 little else has been discovered in the Kuiper belt... lots of objects with
diameters around hundreds of kilometers, but no other of semi-planetary size.
The work of astronomers thus began to move toward a statistical treatment of the different
populations of objects in the Kuiper belt. Until, on January 20, 2016, Brown,
along with one of his post-doc students, Konstantin Batygin, presented a paper entitled
"EVIDENCE FOR A DISTANT GIANT PLANET IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM" in the pages of the Astronomical Journal.
Batygin and Brown examine the orbital data of Sedna and a small group of five other objects,
observing that the primary axes of their orbits are practically parallel;
and, more critically, that the orbits all have a very similar inclination.
The bodies in the Kuiper Belt, including Pluto, are all trans-Neptunian objects,
with average distances from the Sun between 30 and 55 astronomical units. But the six objects
studied by Batygin and Brown do not belong to the Kuiper Belt. They are classified as ETNO (extreme
trans-Neptunian objects) because they have extremely elongated orbits.
Even at perihelion, they are more than 30 astronomical units away from the Sun
and at aphelion, they can reach - like Sedna - distances close to one thousand astronomical units
(1 astronomical unit is equivalent to about 150 million kilometers and represents the
average distance of the Earth from the Sun). Studying the orbits of these six ETNOs, Batygin
and Brown noticed something strange. A feature of their orbits, called the perihelion argument
(basically the angular orientation of the major semiaxis of the orbit),
was similar in all six bodies. Also very similar was the inclination of their orbital plane.
In short, there was something, a force, that seemed to act on the orbits of the six ETNO,
orienting and stretching them all in the same way. The six bodies, by the way, had been discovered by
six different telescopes during as many different surveys, so it was to discard
the hypothesis that their "grouping" in orbiting around the Sun depended on a
distortion due to the mode of observation. The two astronomers calculated that there
was only a 0.007% probability that that orbital disposition was casual; and after
having conducted a series of simulations based on different types of gravitational interactions,
they were convinced that the most probable cause of the orbital similarity
of the six ETNOs could only be the gravitational attraction exerted on those bodies by a ninth
planet of the solar system, very far from the Sun. Their simulations indicated that a planet with a
mass equal to about 10 Earth masses, was moving along a very elongated orbit, distant on average
700 AU, but with a perihelion of 200 AU and an aphelion of 1200 AU. located in an elliptical
orbit with an eccentricity of about 0.6, the semi-major axis of 700 astronomical units,
perihelion, and aphelion respectively at 200 and 1200 astronomical units from the Sun
and perihelion argument opposite of 180° to that of the six ETNO, could explain very well
the orbital confinement of those six planets. After the publication of the study, debates
flourished on the existence of the hypothetical Planet Nine, but also intensified its research.
A search conducted, however, almost blindly. If this distant and cold body really existed,
it would have an apparent magnitude greater than 22, which means that we should try to
perceive the movement of a bright dot at least 600 times dimmer than Pluto...
Over the years, thanks to increasingly powerful and precise telescopes,
astronomers have become quite adept at looking for particular categories of celestial bodies:
you indicate the features you want to the instruments, to exclude everything else from the
field of view, and then evaluate the results. In a way, though, it's like trawling,
whereas in the case of the ninth planet you'd need a... spear gun!
Telescopes suitable and powerful enough for the purpose are not many and
are in high demand by researchers. Finding vacancies is difficult, and astronomers are
often reduced to having only a couple of nights a year to pursue their observations.
In 2019, an additional study by Brown and Batygin increased the number of
ETNOs with apparently aligned orbits to 14. Which allowed the authors to refine their
assessments of the characteristics of the hypothetical planet nine:
the average distance of 400-500 AU from the Sun. the distance at the perihelion of 280 AU
distance at aphelion of 650 AU diameter of 25,000 km
mass: 5 times that of the Earth orbit inclination of 20°.
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Although the evidence brought by Batygin and Brown seems quite convincing, no one really
knows if Planet Nine exists or not. And until we find out through direct observation, its
existence will not be scientifically confirmed. But where could it be right now? For now,
no one really knows, although studies done so far provide a rough idea of its motion in the sky and
its brightness. The current efforts of scientists are focused on reducing the area of research:
for example, new simulations of Batygin and Brown have restricted the possible location
of Planet Nine to an area of about 600 square degrees (remember that the surface of the entire
celestial sphere is about 40 thousand degrees!). Excluding the areas of the sky already monitored
by automated surveys such as Pan STARRS and WISE, the most reasonable conclusion
is that Planet Nine could be close to its orbital aphelion, at about 600 AU. Statistically, in fact,
an object orbiting a star spends much more time near its aphelion, where its velocity is lower.
Its magnitude would then be +22: a brightness within the reach of any professional telescope...
but unfortunately, in the direction of the center of the Milky Way. And if this rough prediction
is true, it could be extremely complicated to discover Planet Nine in front of the incredibly
dense star fields near the center of our galaxy. In short... Between ups and downs, the scientific
debate on the existence of the ninth planet continues.
A debate, sometimes made of very polemical attacks, rekindled a year ago by new research
published under the title No Evidence for Orbital Clustering in the Extreme Trans-Neptunian Objects.
According to the authors of the study, led by Kevin Napier of the University of Michigan,
there would be nothing so strange in the orbits of the 14 ETNOs mentioned by Brown and Batygin,
and their similarity could be just the result of a statistical accident.
Their thesis is that since these objects, in addition to being few in number,
are small and faint, very dark, and difficult to spot except on rare, fortuitous occasions,
their apparent densification in a particular region of the sky could be a function of the
characteristics of the telescopic survey that detected them, rather than the presence of a
"large attractor." It cannot be ruled out that their distribution is actually uniform across the
celestial vault...which would rule out the need to bring up the existence of a perturbing planet.
Of course, Brown and Batygin do not agree. And their polemic vein in their reply can be seen in
Batygin's own words: "I'm still quite optimistic about Planet Nine. If you see a bunch of bears to
the east, you might think there was a bear cave there. But Napier is saying the bears are all
around us, because we haven't checked everywhere. That logical jump is not one you can make."
Untangling this problem will require further observations that lead to knowledge of an
increasing number of transneptunian objects, to determine once and for
all whether or not the accumulation that led to the hypothesis of Planet Nine is there.
The ninth planet will continue to keep astronomers busy for a long time to come,
but new data to settle their diatribe could arrive within a few years.
Because the planet is expected to be moving in the northern celestial hemisphere, the primary
search is for now being conducted with the Subaru telescope at Mauna Kea, Hawaii, which has both an
aperture large enough to see faint objects and a wide field of view to shorten the search time.
Then, in Chile, construction is underway on the Vera Rubin Observatory, equipped with a powerful
telescope (Large Synoptic Survey Telescope) that will conduct observational campaigns to photograph
the night sky of the Southern Hemisphere. It will allow precise mapping of objects
in the Kuiper belt and will likely lead to the discovery of many more transneptunian objects.
U.S. astronomer Vera Rubin, after whom the new telescope is named, was a pioneer in the study
of galaxy rotation and in defining "dark matter," the part that is invisible to us and is thought
to occupy about 85 percent of the Universe. Commenting on the complexity of his studies,
he once said, "Many mysteries of the Universe are still hidden from us. Their discovery awaits
the adventurous scientists of the future." The ninth planet is certainly one of these mysteries.