Sky Father Even Messes With OUR Solar System

in #science6 years ago

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I have been writing a series of articles here on steem to discuss some of the interesting bits of astronomy. I have been using the anthropomorphized concept of 'Sky Father' (Earth Mother's mythological spouse) as as a merry old grandfather who likes to pull pranks on his grandchildren as a way to describe the surprises we have been finding out in the cosmos and how, at times, it feels like there's someone a bit impish out there playing pranks on us about our myopic expectations for the universe.

So far, I have written about exoplanets (those not in our solar system) and some peculiar stars. It would imply that Sky Father only leaves his pranks out far away from our Sun and solar system. That's completely wrong, it seems. He left a stinker right here in our own solar system.

Or so it would seem.

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Out past the planet Uranus, there is a belt of smallish worlds called dwarf planets. This belt is called the Kuiper Belt. Pluto and Triton are good examples of these, but there are many, many more. A large number of them are more or less the same size as Pluto. Many of them, like Pluto, have moons. However, they are called dwarf planets, due to their number and being so small compared to the other planet: Pluto (1,188 km radius) is smaller than our own Moon (1,738 km radius). This has upset some planetary astronomers.

In 2014, astronomers wrote a letter in Nature, a scientific journal, noting some interesting and odd similarities in orbits for some of the Kuiper Belt Objects. These small balls of ice were orbiting in a way that seemed to be synchronous, after a fashion and would reach far, far out into where there ought to be another cloud, but of comets, called the Oort Cloud.

In 2016, two astronomers from Caltech thought they might have an explanation: a Ninth Planet.

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What they proposed was a large, superearth or mini neptune sized planet, was out far, far out in the solar system and tugging on the dwarf planets of the Kuiper Belt. This put the dwarf planets into a resonance over time with the orbit of the hypothesized Ninth Planet. At first blush, this looks pretty good, the math and whatnot, and there may be a planet out there.

If there is a ninth planet, it will be named based on the Greco-Roman mythology. Worlds around other stars have been named for other mythologies, but the ones in our solar system have an official theme. This world, as noted, is likely to be about 2x the diameter of Earth and be about 10x the mass of Earth or roughly half of Neptune. It also orbits very, very far away. The initial paper suggested Planet Nine was further away than 200 AU (200x the distance between the Earth and the Sun), a recent paper suggests Planet Nine may be closer, as close as 90 AU. However, it's orbit would take it far, far out and require 15,000 years to complete.

There is a massive search on for the new planet. So far, no one has found it. No small part of the reason is a bit of immortality: the finders get to name the world and the last world found that was a 'real' planet was Uranus. However, there may be one problem. Like Planet X before, Planet Nine may have one really big issue: it may not exist.

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Some scientists have been rather skeptical of Planet Nine. After all, for a long, long time, while Pluto was considered a planet and we were not aware of the Kuiper Belt, there was a massive hunt for another planet out in the outer solar system. Planet X (ten) was supposed to be influencing the orbits of Neptune and Uranus, so went the calculation and so there must be another planet out there! The hunt was fruitless and in the end, after the Voyager II probe flew past Uranus and Neptune, it was found the original data for their orbits was off just enough to have given a false positive for another planet. With that in mind, some are just outright skeptical.

Other scientists have been proposing there is no need for Planet Nine to explain the orbits of the Kuiper Belt Objects. There are other explanations. We know, for example, that the sun has had other stars pass closely by. Perhaps, some of conjectured, the dwarf planets were all tugged to this star. Another suggestion is that the Kozai-Lidov mechanism was in play for causing the Kuiper Belt Object to go into resonance. Other have stated there may be more dwarf planets in the Kuiper Belt we haven't found that would explain the orbits as well.

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Whether Planet Nine exists or not, there is a massive search on using observatories around the world - even in orbit! - and supercomputers grinding away to find it. This is a chance at immortality and the discovery that would make someone's career and reputation.

It is a frenetic quest that hasn't been pushed for in my entire life, not even when hunting planets around other stars. Will it be fruitful? I don't know. What we see needs an explanation and we will figure it out, whether it is a new planet or not. Either way, Sky Father is getting a giggle from his little prank.

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