Planet Nine, if it exists, would have about 10 times the mass of Earth and orbit 20 times farther from the sun than Neptune does. (Planet Nine is not Pluto, which was once considered the ninth planet but was demoted to mere “dwarf planet” in 2006. Nor is it Nibiru, the completely fictional “rogue planet” that conspiracy theorists sometimes claim is about to destroy the Earth.)
Scientists suspect the existence of Planet Nine because it would explain some of the gravitational forces at play in the Kuiper Belt, a stretch of icy bodies beyond Neptune. But no one has been able to detect the planet yet, though astronomers are scanning the skies for it with tools such as the Subaru Telescope on Hawaii’s Mauna Kea volcano.
Medieval records could provide another tool, said Pedro Lacerda, a Queen’s University astronomer and the other leader of the project.
“We can take the orbits of comets currently known and use a computer to calculate the times when those comets would be visible in the skies during the Middle Ages,” Lacerda told Live Science. “The precise times depend on whether our computer simulations include Planet Nine. So, in simple terms, we can use the medieval comet sightings to check which computer simulations work best: the ones that include Planet Nine or the ones that do not.”
The orbit could be so eccentric that it only enters the Kuiper Belt every 100,000 years or so. Right now it's some rather far fetched speculation.
ReplyDeletePS - Pluto is still a planet.
Pluto's 'problem' with the Astronomer's Union (not a Labor org., btw) is that while it Orbits the Sun, there's a few Moons and Asteroids bigger than it is. The "Dwarf Planet" designation has been applied to some Asteroids as well, AFIK.
ReplyDeleteAnd that Nibiru crap? It's been going to Destroy the World Next Year, for the last 50 Years or so...