04-29-2017, 04:05 PM
"Does the proposed Planet 9 actually exist?"
Some of you may be aware that recently there has been a search for a new 9th planet using the Subaru telescope on MK. Computer models suggested that the orbits of very distant trans-Neptunian objects point to a very large planet orbiting far beyond Neptune.
However, a recent discovery by the CFHT on MK throws this into some doubt. The researchers discovered a new trans-Neptunian object, about half the size of the Big Island, which has been given the romantic name of SY99.
SY99 is extremely distant and its orbit would be drastically affected by Planet 9 if it exists, throwing it out of the solar system entirely or into an orbit that would be hard to detect. If this is the case, this is a very lucky observation. However, if SY99 is just an example of many other objects like this, but just haven't been observed yet as they are so faint, then Planet 9 probably doesn't exist.
The search goes on for more objects like SY99 and Planet 9.
https://phys.org/news/2017-04-discovery-...ptune.html
Some of you may be aware that recently there has been a search for a new 9th planet using the Subaru telescope on MK. Computer models suggested that the orbits of very distant trans-Neptunian objects point to a very large planet orbiting far beyond Neptune.
However, a recent discovery by the CFHT on MK throws this into some doubt. The researchers discovered a new trans-Neptunian object, about half the size of the Big Island, which has been given the romantic name of SY99.
SY99 is extremely distant and its orbit would be drastically affected by Planet 9 if it exists, throwing it out of the solar system entirely or into an orbit that would be hard to detect. If this is the case, this is a very lucky observation. However, if SY99 is just an example of many other objects like this, but just haven't been observed yet as they are so faint, then Planet 9 probably doesn't exist.
The search goes on for more objects like SY99 and Planet 9.
https://phys.org/news/2017-04-discovery-...ptune.html