Study: The Possibility Of Discovering The Key To Finding The Ninth Planet
It's been six years since astronomers found strong evidence that a mysterious ninth planet might exist in the far reaches of our solar system, and now scientists think they may finally have a way to find it.
But what is called in the theoretical world - nicknamed the ninth planet - no one has seen it yet, and in the meantime it remains just a theory.
Experts say Planet Nine could be surrounded by up to 20 hot moons about 62 miles (100 kilometers) wide, which could be the key to confirming the existence of the mysterious world.
The reason for this is that the moons would be warmed by the planet's gravitational pull thanks to a phenomenon known as tidal heating, making them easier to detect.
And if moons can be seen, they must serve as crumbs that lead astronomers into the hidden world itself. The hypothetical planet itself cannot be seen because it is too far away to be properly illuminated by the Sun, but mathematical modeling indicates that a large object causes unique orbits of at least five smaller objects in the distant Kuiper Belt.
Some astronomers have been certain of its existence since 2015 - when Caltech astronomers Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown revealed strong evidence that this ninth planet is hiding beyond the orbit of Neptune.
If true, astronomers believe it could be about 10 times as massive as Earth and could take between 10,000 and 20,000 years to make a full orbit around the sun.
But despite the excitement surrounding the theoretical Planet Nine, no one has actually seen it, and for now it remains just a theory.
Man Ho Chan, an astronomer at the Education University of Hong Kong, believes he has a way of confirming its existence one way or another. The secret, he says, lies in the moons of Planet Nine.
He estimated the number of natural satellites that could circle the globe by combining their assumed size and gravity with the number of extreme trans-Neptunian objects (ETNOs) close enough to be pulled into permanent orbit around them.
ETNOS include asteroids, comets, moons, or dwarf planets.
Chan estimated that as many as 20 moons could orbit this theoretical planet, each about 62 miles (100 kilometers) across.
The reason he believes these objects could literally shed light on the existence of Planet Nine is the gravitational phenomenon known as tidal heating.
An example of how this works can be seen near our system, where a tug of war stretches between Jupiter's moons and the planet itself and crushes the natural satellites enough to warm them up.
This means that some icy moons have interiors warm enough to host oceans of liquid water, and in the case of the rocky moon Io, tidal heating melts the rock into magma.
Tidal heating could theoretically raise the temperature of any Planet Nine moon to about minus 280 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 173 degrees Celsius).
And while that may not sound warm, the average temperature of empty space is minus 455 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 271 degrees Celsius).
Chan said that if any of Planet Nine's moons are as hot as they think they are, they are likely to emit a faint radio signal that can be detected by telescopes.
He added that this provides a new, indirect way to examine the Planet Nine hypothesis and reveal the fundamental characteristics of the ninth planet.
The latest research comes just two years after the proposed existence of Planet Nine was questioned by a team of experts examining the orbits of "extreme" trans-Neptunian objects.
Led by physicist Kevin Napier, at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, they found that the turbulent orbits of Kuiper belt objects can indeed be explained without the presence of a nearby planet.
The authors conclude that the organisms only appear to have pooled pathways due to selection bias, although many others disagree and say more data is needed.
There may be an answer either way soon.
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory (VRO) in Chile, which began operating in 2021, launched a ten-year survey of the sky last year and is expected to discover thousands more Kuiper Belt objects.
Close examination of its orbits may be able to confirm or deny the existence of Planet Nine and provide evidence of its origin and location.
He revealed the new research in a paper submitted to The Astrophysical Journal.
Source : websites internet