Tag: Planet Nine

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Solar system’s farthest-out known object is … Farout

Farout
An artist’s conception shows the distant object known as 2018 VG18 or “Farout.” (Carnegie Institution for Science Illustration / Roberto Molar Candanosa)

Astronomers say they’ve discovered the most distant body ever observed in our solar system, a potential dwarf planet that’s about 11 billion miles from the sun.

Its nickname? “Farout.”

The far-out object — which is also known by its more official but less colorful designation, 2018 VG18 — was detected with Japan’s 8-meter Subaru Telescope in Hawaii during a campaign to look for extremely distant solar system objects, including a hypothetical Planet X or Planet Nine.

Further observations to confirm Farout’s distance and determine its brightness and color were made with the 6.5-meter Magellan Telescopes at the Carnegie Institution for Science’s Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. The observations were reported today in a circular distributed by the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center.

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Planet search turns up a dwarf called ‘The Goblin’

Subaru Telescope
The International Space Station leaves a streak above the Subaru Telescope in a long-exposure image. Observations using the Subaru Telescope led to the discovery of the mini-world known as The Goblin. (Subaru Telescope / NAOJ Photo / Hideaki Fujiwara)

While searching for a hypothetical Planet Nine, astronomers found a distant mini-world that’s been given a spooky nickname: “The Goblin.”

The icy object was found at a distance of about 80 astronomical units from the sun, which translates to 7.4 billion miles. (One astronomical unit, or AU, equals 93 million miles, which is the distance between Earth and the sun.) That’s more than twice as far away as dwarf planet Pluto.

A research team led by Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution of Science first spotted The Goblin just before Halloween in 2015. That timing, plus the fact that it was given the numerical designation 2015 TG387, gave rise to the trick-or-treat nickname. (T.G. … Get it?)

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Looking for Planet 9? There’s an app for that

Image: Planet X
An artist’s conception shows Planet X, a.k.a. Planet Nine. (Credit: Robin Dienel / Carnegie Inst.)

Citizen scientists can join an online hunt for icy worlds, brown dwarfs and other yet-to-be-discovered objects beyond the orbit of Neptune, using a technique that’s not all that different from the method that led to Pluto’s discovery 87 years ago.

“Backyard Worlds: Planet 9” could even lead to the discovery of a super-Earth that may (or may not) be hidden on the solar system’s far frontier. The icy world known as Planet Nine or Planet X is only theoretical for now, but its existence would explain some of the puzzles surrounding the weird orbits of some far-out objects.

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Astronomers see more signs of Planet Nine

Planet Nine
An artist’s conception shows Planet Nine with the sun in the far background. (Credit: R. Hurt / IPAC / Caltech)

Astronomers haven’t yet seen Planet Nine, the theoretical world that some say lies far beyond Pluto’s orbit, but they’re seeing more phenomena that could be explained by its existence.

Today, astronomers laid out evidence that the undiscovered planet may be responsible for twisting the main plane of our solar system about 6 degrees off-kilter with respect to the sun.

In a paper accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal, astronomers say Planet Nine’s gravitational influence could disrupt planetary orbits to account for that much of a tilt.

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Hunt for Planet Nine leads to mini-worlds

Image: Planet X
An artist’s conception shows Planet X, a.k.a. Planet Nine. (Credit: Robin Dienel / Carnegie Inst.)

The hypothetical world known as Planet X or Planet Nine hasn’t yet been found, but thanks to the search, astronomers have discovered smaller worlds on the solar system’s edge.

Mapping such objects could lead to the big discovery: a planet that’s thought to be at least several times bigger than Earth, lurking at least 200 times farther away from the sun. Or it could lead to a different explanation for the puzzling, highly elongated orbits of some of the objects that lie far beyond Pluto.

Planet Nine’s existence was proposed last year as the most elegant way to account for the orbits of worlds such as Sedna and 2012 VP113 (which has been nicknamed “Biden” in honor of the veep). Ever since then, astronomers have been surveying the skies in hopes of tracking it down.

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The case for Planet Nine (a.k.a. Planet X)

Image: Planet Nine
An artist’s conception shows a “super-Earth” far from the sun. (Credit: R. Hurt / IPAC / Caltech)

For decades, astronomers have gone back and forth over whether a “Planet X” exists on the edge of our solar system – and now two researchers have laid out new evidence supporting the claim, including a rough idea of where it could be found.

One of the most notable things about the claim has to do with one of the people who’s making it: Mike Brown, the Caltech astronomer who says he “killed” Pluto when it was the ninth planet.

“This would be a real ninth planet,” Brown said in a news release. “There have only been two true planets discovered since ancient times, and this would be the third.”

Brown’s “two true planets” refer to Uranus and Neptune, not Pluto. To emphasize the point, Brown and his collaborator at Caltech, Konstantin Batygin, have nicknamed the object “Planet Nine.” (Other nicknames are said to include George, Planet of the Apes, Jehoshaphat and Phattie.)

There’s one big gap in the argument: No such object has yet been detected.

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