Planets of the solar system, what's new. How many are there? Mysteries of "Planet X"
Another planet of the solar system
Many signs indicate that in the next few years, “Planet X” - probably this is the legendary Nibiru of the Sumerians - during its next revolution around the Sun in its inclined elongated orbit will cross the Solar System and pass dangerously close to the Earth. Its approach is already causing numerous floods, storms and weather anomalies. But this is only the most harmless of the consequences of meeting Nibiru. Since the size and mass of this planet are several times greater than those of the Earth, it is very likely that under the influence of Nibiru’s gravity our planet will change its orbit and inclination angle. The consequences of this for the Earth are completely unpredictable. Suffice it to say that in a new orbit we can expect a collision with other objects of the Solar System - with planets, their satellites, asteroids, comets passing through these sectors, etc. In a new orbit and with a new angle of inclination, the Earth will distribute solar heat differently - the planet may have a “dead region”, a kind of “back side of the Earth”, which at new angles of rotation around the Sun and along its axis will not be illuminated at all (as an option: an area on which only oblique solar rays will fall at a very small angle) . Such an area will turn into an icy desert. At the same time, the opposite side will most likely resemble the surface of Mercury - it will be a scorched, melted plain... Even in a less radical scenario, the very concept of the Earth’s climate will become a thing of the past. It is very likely that our planet will lose its atmosphere or only a negligible part of it will remain. This means that the Earth will lose protection even from small celestial bodies, and the surface of the planet will very soon be covered with pockmarks of meteorite bombardments - millions of craters that will make the Earth look like its dead satellite.
If events develop this way, neither man nor other living beings will very soon have a place left in this strange and terrible world. Perhaps microbes and microorganisms that can hide in spores for thousands of years in conditions completely unthinkable for a living creature have a chance to survive.
The history of “Planet X” in earthly science is quite complicated - repeated denials of its existence have more than once been replaced by official assurances that it still exists and is hanging around somewhere nearby.
Astronomical discoveries of recent centuries have very often been based on mathematical calculations. Anomalies in the movement of the planets indicated the existence of Neptune and Uranus - objects that cause deviations in the orbits of celestial bodies approaching them. Then it turned out that the orbits of Neptune and Uranus were being disturbed by another very large object. So in 1930, Pluto was discovered, which for half a century was mistaken for a very large planet (today this object does not have the status of a planet and is considered more of a giant comet).
Data
Pluto was considered a large "real" planet until 1978. The revelation came unexpectedly when Jim Christie, an employee of the Naval Observatory in Washington, looked at photographs of Pluto taken in Flagstaff a month earlier in order to clarify the orbit of this mysterious object. The images showed that the body of the planet was strongly elongated in one direction. Jim Christie concluded: the telescope managed to photograph Pluto’s satellite, which simply merged with it in the image. Subsequent calculations confirmed this, and the satellite was given the name Charon.
Subsequently, it turned out that both objects rotate along all their axes, but Charon is constantly located above one point on the surface of Pluto. In addition, the planet is only 2 times larger than its satellite.
Calculations of the mass of the planet became possible precisely thanks to the discovery of Charon. It turned out that Pluto's mass is 454 times less than the Earth, and its diameter is 1.5 times less than the diameter of the Moon.
These calculations ultimately led to the fact that in 2006, at the World Conference of the International Astronomical Union in Prague, Pluto was officially removed from the list of planets of the solar system and recognized as a giant comet.
Solar system. 3D model
However, all calculations showed that there should still be a massive planet near Pluto, whose size would cause deviations in the orbits of other planets, most noticeable near Neptune and Uranus. In 1978, American specialists from the US Naval Observatory in Washington, Robert Harrington and Tom van Flandern, proved that the mysterious celestial body should have a mass 3-4 times greater than the mass of the Earth. This body was originally called "Planet X".
After numerous observations and complex computer modeling, scientists suggested that this planet simply displaced Pluto and Charon from their original orbits - they were previously satellites of Neptune. At the same time, for the first time, the assumption was voiced that “Planet X” did not originally belong to the Solar System - it was attracted by the Sun relatively recently (“recently,” of course, for the Solar System). Hence the very unusual orbit of “Planet X” - according to scientists’ calculations, it revolves around the Sun in a highly elongated orbit, similar to an oval. In addition, the ellipse of rotation of “Planet X” is placed at an angle to the plane of rotation of other planets, so we can say that Nibiru is a kind of “visitor” - it does not reside in the Solar System constantly. Rather, “Planet X” crosses it along an inclined trajectory at different points every few millennia. Since the location of objects changes during this time, there is a danger of Nibiru colliding with other planets or satellites.
According to the observations of the Sumerians, the civilization of Mesopotamia, from whose mythology the name Nibiru is taken, this once happened. If we believe modern interpretations of the cosmogonic epic of this ancient people, which describes the planets as gods, we can conclude that with the next appearance of “Planet X” in the Solar System, one of Nibiru’s satellites collided with the giant planet Tiamat, located between Mars and Jupiter. The fragments formed during the collision became the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars, and the part of Tiamat remaining after the disaster became the Earth.
It is possible that the mystery of “Planet X” will remain unsolved. An “extra” object in the solar system is capable of keeping secrets, even having a fatal impact on the life of the Earth
If we could rely on the myths as reliable information, we could conclude that Nibiru's orbit elongated at that time, and the orbital period became a constant value of 3600 years.
Data
In 1982, NASA officially announced that the Solar System included a certain mysterious object, which at that time was at a great distance even from the most distant planets. Judging by the impressive size of the object, this is “Planet X”. According to astronomers, all that was needed was to make some additional calculations, including finding out the planet’s orbit, and we could safely give it a name. Versions of the name even managed to appear, the most popular of which for a long time remained the proposal to name the Cyclopean planet after Aeneas, the hero of Virgil’s monumental epic work “Aeneid”.
In 1983, the Infrared Orbital Observatory IRAS (InfraRed Astronomical Satelite) was launched, which immediately discovered a huge unknown object on the periphery of the Solar System. The issue of the Washington Post on December 30 of the same year contains an interview with a scientist from the Californian Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who was directly related to the work of the satellite. The researcher said that using an orbiting telescope in the direction of the constellation Orion, a celestial body was discovered that is apparently as huge as the planet Jupiter. The scientist argued that “Planet X” is so close to Earth that its belonging to our solar system is beyond doubt.
At a press conference on the work of the Infrared Orbital Observatory, the head of this project, Dr. Gary Neugebauer, commented on the appearance of the mysterious giant with the words: “We can only tell you one thing: we don’t know what it is.”
Models and calculations in subsequent years made it possible to temporarily bring some certainty to the chaotic information: it turned out that “Planet X” has a mass 3-4 times greater than the Earth, and is removed from the Sun at a distance that is three times the distance to Pluto. This is due to the fact that the planet has an elongated and narrow elliptical orbit, the “length” of which is thousands of times greater than its “width” (both concepts are not applicable to an ellipse, but in this case they are more convenient). In addition, the planet's orbit is inclined to the ecliptic plane (the plane of rotation of the planets of the Solar System) by 30 degrees.
The next recognition of NASA astronomers once again brought down the picture of the world they had built. In 1987, at a press conference at the California Research Center in Ames, speaker John Anderson said that the hypothetical “Planet X” does not necessarily belong to our solar system, since its distance from other planets is too great.
Subsequently, the existence of “Planet X” was repeatedly proven and again officially denied. The name Nibiru was firmly attached to the object. Meanwhile, research in this direction continues. The rule has become an absurd situation when the existence of Nibiru is officially denied by people who participate in official research projects on this very “non-existent” planet. Meanwhile, “Planet X” continues its movement in an inclined orbit - and it moves in the direction of the Earth. In 2006, to observe this phenomenon, NASA built the so-called SPT (South Pole Telescope) at the Amundsen-Scott station at the South Pole. Since then, Internet users have witnessed several times the leakage of photo and video information from SPT about the approaching Nibiru, in light of which any denials simply lost their meaning.
At the end of 2009, NASA continues to deny the existence of Nibiru and the approach of this planet to Earth, while simultaneously preparing to launch a telescope to study it.
Data
The unique WISE (Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer) device is a broadband infrared telescope designed to detect objects invisible to conventional optical telescopes. WISE detects objects by thermal radiation - even if it is extremely small.
According to Peter Eisenhardt, one of the scientific leaders of the WISE project from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, the telescope will scan space for objects invisible in the usual range - not only invisible asteroids, but also large objects the size of the giant planet Jupiter. According to NewScientist magazine, when asked what kind of planet this is, the size of Jupiter, the scientist replied: “The distribution of comet trajectories may indicate that a very large planet may be hiding at a distance of 25 thousand astronomical units.” This time no one said the name “Nibiru”.
Meanwhile, it is very likely that in the next 3-4 years the Earth will be under the influence of Nibiru’s gravitational field. There is hardly any need to fear a collision, however, the effect of the magnetic influence of “Planet X” on the Earth can be very impressive.
Global catastrophe in artistic form
Perhaps one of the most original versions of a catastrophe that came from outer space can be called the plot of the plot in John Wyndham’s novel “The Day of the Triffids” (1951). The book describes a meteor shower, which the heroes later began to call the Coming of the Comet. Everyone who observed this phenomenon of unprecedented beauty - and most of the world's population observed it - went blind the next day.
“I missed the end of the world, the same world that I knew so well for thirty years; missed by pure chance, like the other survivors for that matter.
...The wheels did not rumble, the buses did not roar, not a single car was heard. No squeaking brakes, no signals, not even the sound of horseshoes... There was silence for a second. Then there was a roar of voices screaming at the same time. There seemed to be hundreds of them, and not a single word could be distinguished. ...These voices simply could not belong to normal people.
... You will read in the chronicles that on Tuesday, May 7th, the Earth, in its orbital movement, passed through a cloud of cometary fragments. You can even believe it if you like, because millions of people believed it. ... All I really know is that I spent the evening in bed listening to eyewitness accounts of a celestial phenomenon that has been hailed as the most amazing in the history of mankind. By the way, until it began, no one had heard a word about the alleged comet or its fragments... During the day, news reports reported that the previous night some bright green flashes had been observed in the sky over California. ..Descriptions of a night illuminated by the brilliance of green meteors came from all parts of the Pacific Ocean. The descriptions said: “Meteors fall in such abundant streams that it seems as if the sky itself is spinning around us.” ...The announcer advised everyone who has not seen it yet to immediately go and see it, so as not to regret it for the rest of their lives.”(John Wyndham, “The Day of the Triffids.” Translation by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky).
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Planets of the Solar System
According to the official position of the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the organization that assigns names to astronomical objects, there are only 8 planets.
Pluto was removed from the planet category in 2006. because There are objects in the Kuiper belt that are larger/equal in size to Pluto. Therefore, even if we take it as a full-fledged celestial body, then it is necessary to add Eris to this category, which has almost the same size as Pluto.
By MAC definition, there are 8 known planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
All planets are divided into two categories depending on their physical characteristics: terrestrial planets and gas giants.
Schematic representation of the location of the planets
Terrestrial planets
Mercury
The smallest planet in the solar system has a radius of only 2440 km. The period of revolution around the Sun, equated to an earthly year for ease of understanding, is 88 days, while Mercury manages to rotate around its own axis only one and a half times. Thus, his day lasts approximately 59 Earth days. For a long time it was believed that this planet always turned the same side to the Sun, since periods of its visibility from Earth were repeated with a frequency approximately equal to four Mercury days. This misconception was dispelled with the advent of the ability to use radar research and conduct continuous observations using space stations. The orbit of Mercury is one of the most unstable; not only the speed of movement and its distance from the Sun change, but also the position itself. Anyone interested can observe this effect.
Mercury in color, image from the MESSENGER spacecraft
Its proximity to the Sun is the reason why Mercury is subject to the largest temperature changes among the planets in our system. The average daytime temperature is about 350 degrees Celsius, and the nighttime temperature is -170 °C. Sodium, oxygen, helium, potassium, hydrogen and argon were detected in the atmosphere. There is a theory that it was previously a satellite of Venus, but so far this remains unproven. It does not have its own satellites.
Venus
The second planet from the Sun, the atmosphere is almost entirely composed of carbon dioxide. It is often called the Morning Star and the Evening Star, because it is the first of the stars to become visible after sunset, just as before dawn it continues to be visible even when all the other stars have disappeared from view. The percentage of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is 96%, there is relatively little nitrogen in it - almost 4%, and water vapor and oxygen are present in very small quantities.
Venus in the UV spectrum
Such an atmosphere creates a greenhouse effect; the temperature on the surface is even higher than that of Mercury and reaches 475 °C. Considered the slowest, a Venusian day lasts 243 Earth days, which is almost equal to a year on Venus - 225 Earth days. Many call it Earth's sister because of its mass and radius, the values of which are very close to those of Earth. The radius of Venus is 6052 km (0.85% of Earth's). Like Mercury, there are no satellites.
The third planet from the Sun and the only one in our system where there is liquid water on the surface, without which life on the planet could not have developed. At least life as we know it. The radius of the Earth is 6371 km and, unlike other celestial bodies in our system, more than 70% of its surface is covered with water. The rest of the space is occupied by continents. Another feature of the Earth is the tectonic plates hidden under the planet's mantle. At the same time, they are able to move, albeit at a very low speed, which over time causes changes in the landscape. The speed of the planet moving along it is 29-30 km/sec.
Our planet from space
One revolution around its axis takes almost 24 hours, and a complete passage through the orbit lasts 365 days, which is much longer in comparison with its closest neighboring planets. The Earth's day and year are also accepted as a standard, but this is done only for the convenience of perceiving time periods on other planets. The Earth has one natural satellite - the Moon.
Mars
The fourth planet from the Sun, known for its thin atmosphere. Since 1960, Mars has been actively explored by scientists from several countries, including the USSR and the USA. Not all exploration programs have been successful, but water found at some sites suggests that primitive life exists on Mars, or existed in the past.
The brightness of this planet allows it to be seen from Earth without any instruments. Moreover, once every 15-17 years, during the Confrontation, it becomes the brightest object in the sky, eclipsing even Jupiter and Venus.
The radius is almost half that of Earth and is 3390 km, but the year is much longer - 687 days. He has 2 satellites - Phobos and Deimos .
Visual model of the solar system
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Sun
The Sun is a star that is a hot ball of hot gases at the center of our Solar System. Its influence extends far beyond the orbits of Neptune and Pluto. Without the Sun and its intense energy and heat, there would be no life on Earth. There are billions of stars like our Sun scattered throughout the Milky Way galaxy.
Mercury
Sun-scorched Mercury is only slightly larger than Earth's satellite the Moon. Like the Moon, Mercury is practically devoid of an atmosphere and cannot smooth out the traces of impact from falling meteorites, so it, like the Moon, is covered with craters. The day side of Mercury gets very hot from the Sun, while on the night side the temperature drops hundreds of degrees below zero. There is ice in the craters of Mercury, which are located at the poles. Mercury completes one revolution around the Sun every 88 days.
Venus
Venus is a world of monstrous heat (even more than on Mercury) and volcanic activity. Similar in structure and size to Earth, Venus is covered by a thick and toxic atmosphere that creates a strong greenhouse effect. This scorched world is hot enough to melt lead. Radar images through the powerful atmosphere revealed volcanoes and deformed mountains. Venus rotates in the opposite direction from the rotation of most planets.
Earth is an ocean planet. Our home, with its abundance of water and life, makes it unique in our solar system. Other planets, including several moons, also have ice deposits, atmospheres, seasons and even weather, but only on Earth did all these components come together in a way that made life possible.
Mars
Although details of the surface of Mars are difficult to see from Earth, observations through a telescope indicate that Mars has seasons and white spots at the poles. For decades, people believed that the bright and dark areas on Mars were patches of vegetation, that Mars might be a suitable place for life, and that water existed in the polar ice caps. When the Mariner 4 spacecraft arrived at Mars in 1965, many scientists were shocked to see photographs of the murky, cratered planet. Mars turned out to be a dead planet. More recent missions, however, have revealed that Mars holds many mysteries that remain to be solved.
Jupiter
Jupiter is the most massive planet in our solar system, with four large moons and many small moons. Jupiter forms a kind of miniature solar system. To become a full-fledged star, Jupiter needed to become 80 times more massive.
Saturn
Saturn is the farthest of the five planets known before the invention of the telescope. Like Jupiter, Saturn is composed primarily of hydrogen and helium. Its volume is 755 times greater than that of the Earth. Winds in its atmosphere reach speeds of 500 meters per second. These fast winds, combined with heat rising from the planet's interior, cause the yellow and golden streaks we see in the atmosphere.
Uranus
The first planet found using a telescope, Uranus was discovered in 1781 by astronomer William Herschel. The seventh planet is so far from the Sun that one revolution around the Sun takes 84 years.
Neptune
Distant Neptune rotates almost 4.5 billion kilometers from the Sun. It takes him 165 years to complete one revolution around the Sun. It is invisible to the naked eye due to its vast distance from Earth. Interestingly, its unusual elliptical orbit intersects with the orbit of the dwarf planet Pluto, which is why Pluto is inside the orbit of Neptune for about 20 years out of 248 during which it makes one revolution around the Sun.
Pluto
Tiny, cold and incredibly distant, Pluto was discovered in 1930 and was long considered the ninth planet. But after discoveries of Pluto-like worlds that were even further away, Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet in 2006.
Planets are giants
There are four gas giants located beyond the orbit of Mars: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. They are located in the outer solar system. They are distinguished by their massiveness and gas composition.
Planets of the solar system, not to scale
Jupiter
The fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet in our system. Its radius is 69912 km, it is 19 times larger than the Earth and only 10 times smaller than the Sun. The year on Jupiter is not the longest in the solar system, lasting 4333 Earth days (less than 12 years). His own day has a duration of about 10 Earth hours. The exact composition of the planet's surface has not yet been determined, but it is known that krypton, argon and xenon are present on Jupiter in much larger quantities than on the Sun.
There is an opinion that one of the four gas giants is actually a failed star. This theory is also supported by the largest number of satellites, of which Jupiter has many - as many as 67. To imagine their behavior in the planet’s orbit, you need a fairly accurate and clear model of the solar system. The largest of them are Callisto, Ganymede, Io and Europa. Moreover, Ganymede is the largest satellite of the planets in the entire solar system, its radius is 2634 km, which is 8% greater than the size of Mercury, the smallest planet in our system. Io has the distinction of being one of only three moons with an atmosphere.
Saturn
The second largest planet and the sixth in the solar system. In comparison with other planets, it is most similar to the Sun in the composition of chemical elements. The radius of the surface is 57,350 km, the year is 10,759 days (almost 30 Earth years). A day here lasts a little longer than on Jupiter - 10.5 Earth hours. In terms of the number of satellites, it is not much behind its neighbor - 62 versus 67. The largest satellite of Saturn is Titan, just like Io, which is distinguished by the presence of an atmosphere. Slightly smaller in size, but no less famous are Enceladus, Rhea, Dione, Tethys, Iapetus and Mimas. It is these satellites that are the objects for the most frequent observation, and therefore we can say that they are the most studied in comparison with the others.
For a long time, the rings on Saturn were considered a unique phenomenon unique to it. Only recently it was established that all gas giants have rings, but in others they are not so clearly visible. Their origin has not yet been established, although there are several hypotheses about how they appeared. In addition, it was recently discovered that Rhea, one of the satellites of the sixth planet, also has some kind of rings.
Exactly two years ago, California Institute of Technology scientists Konstantin Batygin and Michael Brown published a paper that once again raised hopes that another planet could be discovered in the solar system, located much further than Pluto. Read more about the history of the search for the ninth planet and the significance of the calculations of Batygin and Brown upon request N+1 says blogger and popularizer of astronautics Vitaly “Green Cat” Egorov.
In the astronomical community, they have been discussing for two years a sensation that does not yet exist. A number of indirect signs indicate that somewhere in the solar system, much further than Pluto, there is another planet. It hasn't been found yet, but its approximate location has been calculated. If there is no error in the calculations, then this will be the most important astronomical discovery of the century.
The first planet discovered “at the tip of a pen” was Neptune - back in the 1830s, astronomers noticed unexpected deviations in the orbit of Uranus and suggested that there was another planet behind it that was causing gravitational disturbance. The hypothesis was confirmed in 1846, when Neptune was observed in a mathematically predicted area of the sky. It turned out that it had been seen before, but could not be distinguished from distant stars. The average distance to Neptune is 4.5 billion kilometers, or about 30 astronomical units (one astronomical unit is equal to the distance from the Sun to the Earth - about 150 million kilometers).
The optimism after the discovery of Neptune inspired many scientists and astronomy enthusiasts to search for other, more distant planets. Further observations of Neptune and Uranus showed a discrepancy between the actual movements of the planets and those predicted mathematically, and this inspired confidence that the sensation of 1846 could be repeated. The search seemed to be successful in 1930 when Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto at a distance of about 40 astronomical units.
Clyde Tombaugh
For a long time, Pluto remained the only known object in the solar system located further from the Sun than Neptune. And as the quality of astronomical technology grew, ideas about the size of Pluto constantly changed downwards. By mid-century, it was thought to have a size comparable to Earth and a very dark surface. In 1978, it was possible to clarify the mass of Pluto thanks to the discovery of its satellite Charon. It turned out that it is much smaller not only than Mercury, but even the Earth’s Moon.
By the end of the 20th century, thanks to digital photography and computer data processing technologies, other trans-Neptunian objects, smaller than Pluto, began to be discovered. At first, out of habit, they were called planets. There were ten of them in the solar system, then eleven, then twelve. But by the early 2000s, astronomers sounded the alarm. It became clear that the solar system does not end beyond Neptune and it is not suitable to give each ice block the status of Earth and Jupiter. In 2006, a separate name was invented for pluto-like bodies - dwarf planet. There are eight planets again, just like a century ago.
Meanwhile, the search for real planets beyond the orbits of Neptune and Pluto continued. There have even been hypotheses about the presence of a red or brown dwarf there, that is, a small star-like body weighing several tens of Jupiters, which forms a double star system with the Sun. This hypothesis was suggested by... dinosaurs and other extinct animals. A group of scientists noted that mass extinctions on Earth occur approximately every 26 million years, and suggested that this is a period when a massive body returns to the vicinity of the inner solar system, which leads to an increase in the number of comets rushing towards the Sun and hitting the Earth. These hypotheses appeared in many media in the form of anti-scientific predictions about an impending attack by aliens from the planet or star Nibiru.
On the X axis - millions of years to the present day, on the Y axis - bursts of extinction of biological species on Earth
NASA has twice attempted to find a possible planet or brown dwarf. In 1983, the IRAS space telescope carried out a complete mapping of the celestial sphere in the infrared range. The telescope has observed tens of thousands of thermal sources, discovered several asteroids and comets in the solar system, and caused a media frenzy when scientists mistook a distant galaxy for a Jupiter-like planet. In 2009, a similar, but more sensitive and long-lived WISE telescope flew, which managed to find several brown dwarfs, but at a distance of several light years, that is, not related to the Solar system. He also showed that in our system there are no planets the size of Saturn or Jupiter beyond Neptune either.
No one has yet been able to spot a new planet or a nearby star. Either it's not there at all, or it's too cold and emits or reflects too little light to be detected by a random search. Scientists still have to rely on indirect signs: the peculiarities of the movement of other already discovered cosmic bodies.
At first, encouraging data were obtained from anomalies in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune, but in 1989 it was found that the cause of the anomalies was an erroneous determination of Neptune's mass: it turned out to be five percent lighter than previously thought. After correcting the data, the modeling began to coincide with observations, and the hypothesis of a ninth planet was no longer necessary.
Some researchers have wondered about the reasons for the appearance of long-period comets in the inner Solar System and about the source of short-period comets. Long-period comets can appear near the Sun once every hundreds or millions of years. Short-period ones fly around the Sun in 200 years or less, that is, they are much closer.
Comets have a very short lifespan by cosmic standards. Their main material is ice of various origins: from water, methane, cyanogen, etc. The sun's rays evaporate the ice, and the comet turns into an imperceptible stream of dust. However, short-period comets continue to orbit the Sun today, billions of years after the formation of the Solar System. This means that their number is replenished from some external source.
Such a source is considered to be the Oort Cloud - a hypothetical region with a radius of up to 1 light year, or 60 thousand astronomical units, around the Sun. It is believed that there are millions of pieces of ice flying there in circular orbits. But periodically something changes their orbit and launches them towards the Sun. What kind of force this is is still unknown: it could be a gravitational disturbance from neighboring stars, the results of collisions in the cloud, or the influence of a large body in it. For example, it could be a planet slightly larger than Jupiter - it was even given the name Tyukhe. The authors of the Tyche hypothesis assumed that the WISE telescope would be able to find it, but the discovery did not take place.
Oort Cloud (above: the orange line shows the conventional orbit of objects from the Kuiper Belt, the yellow line shows the orbit of Pluto
While the Oort Cloud is only a hypothetical family of small Solar System bodies that astronomers cannot observe directly, another family, the Kuiper Belt, is much better studied. Pluto is the first Kuiper Belt body to be discovered. Three more dwarf planets the size of Pluto or smaller and more than a thousand small bodies have now been discovered there.
The Kuiper Belt family is characterized by circular orbits, a slight inclination to the plane of rotation of the known planets of the Solar System - the ecliptic plane - and rotation between 30 and 55 astronomical units. On the inner side, the Kuiper belt breaks off in the orbit of Neptune, in addition, this planet exerts a gravitational disturbance on the belt. The reason for the outer sharp boundary of the belt is unknown. This gives reason to assume the presence of another full-fledged planet somewhere at a distance of 50 astronomical units.
Beyond the Kuiper belt, although partially overlapping with it, lies the region of the scattered disk. Small bodies of this disk, on the contrary, are characterized by highly elongated elliptical orbits and a significant inclination to the ecliptic plane. New hopes for the discovery of the ninth planet and heated discussions among astronomers gave rise to the bodies of the scattered disk.
Some objects in the scattered disk are so far from Neptune that it has no gravitational influence on them. A separate term “isolated trans-Neptunian object” has been coined for them. One such famous object, Sedna, is 76 astronomical units closer to the Sun and 1,000 astronomical units away from the Sun, which is why it is also considered the first Oort Cloud object to be found. Some known scattered disk bodies have less extreme orbits, while others, on the contrary, have an even more elongated orbit and a strong inclination of the plane of revolution.
According to the calculations of the authors of the new hypothesis, “their” planet may have an elongated orbit, approaching the Sun by 200 and moving away by 1200 astronomical units. Its exact location in the earth’s sky cannot yet be calculated, but the approximate search area is gradually shrinking. The search is being conducted using the Subaru Optical Telescope in Hawaii and the Victor Blanco Telescope in Chile. In order to further confirm the existence of the planet and clarify its possible location, it is necessary to find more scattered disk bodies. Now these searches continue, the work is of high priority, and new finds are appearing. However, the expected planet remains elusive.
If astronomers knew where to look, they might be able to see the planet and estimate its size. But “long-range” telescopes have too narrow a viewing angle to freely search large areas of the sky. For example, the famous Hubble space telescope has examined less than 10 percent of the entire celestial sphere during its 25 years of operation. But the search continues, and if the ninth planet of the solar system is found, it will become a real sensation in astronomy.
Vitaly Egorov
Scientists say they have strong evidence for the existence of Planet X, the true ninth planet at the edge of our solar system. The gas giant has 10 times the mass of Earth and orbits 20 times farther from the Sun than Neptune. The planet is so far away that it takes about 10,000 – 20,000 years to orbit the Sun.
Researchers Konstantin Batygin And Mike Brown Mike Brown of the California Institute of Technology found that a number of objects in the Kuiper Belt, a region of icy objects beyond Neptune, had orbits aligned in the same direction.
Using mathematical and computer modeling, they came to the conclusion that the shape of these orbits was given by the planet. Scientists say there is only a 0.007% chance that this could be a coincidence.
Early in the formation of the solar system, about 4 billion years ago, a giant planet was ejected from the planet-forming region near the sun. It ended up in a distant elliptical orbit, where it remains today.
Only two planets have been discovered since ancient times, and this could be the third.
Researchers are confident that Planet Nine is large enough that, unlike Pluto, there will be no debate about whether it is a true planet.
If Planet X was able to remain within the solar system, it would have accumulated enough gas or ice to become a giant like Jupiter or Neptune.
So far, only the orbit is known, but not the exact location of the planet. If a planet is close to perihelion, it will be visible in photographs taken in previous studies.
If it is in the farthest part of its orbit, it will need a large telescope such as Keck Observatory and the Subaru Telescope, located on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. If Planet Nine is somewhere in between, many telescopes can try to find it.
However, the search for the planet could take from 5 to 15 years, scientists say.
One of the scientists, Mike Brown, once participated in the exclusion of Pluto from the ranks of the planets of our solar system.
Pluto was discovered by astronomer Clyde Tombaugh in 1930, and until 2006 it remained the ninth planet of the solar system. However, in 2006, the definition of a planet was revised, and Pluto no longer met this definition. According to the new rules International Astronomical Union (IAU), a celestial body must meet the following criteria to be considered a planet:
The planet must be round
· The planet must orbit the Sun
· The planet must clear the vicinity of its orbit. This means that when a planet moves, gravity clears the space around it of other objects. Some of these objects may collide with the planet, others may become satellites.
Pluto meets the first two criteria, but not the third. Pluto is only 0.07 times the mass of the other objects in its orbit. By comparison, the Earth has 1.7 million times the mass of other objects in its orbit.