{"id":19201,"date":"2016-10-20T00:54:39","date_gmt":"2016-10-19T16:54:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/astronomers-are-seeing-more-signs-of-undiscovered-planet-nines-influence\/"},"modified":"2016-10-20T00:54:39","modified_gmt":"2016-10-19T16:54:39","slug":"astronomers-are-seeing-more-signs-of-undiscovered-planet-nines-influence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/astronomers-are-seeing-more-signs-of-undiscovered-planet-nines-influence\/","title":{"rendered":"Astronomers are seeing more signs of undiscovered Planet Nine\u2019s influence"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_283243\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-283243\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-283243\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/161019-planet-nine-630x407.jpg\" alt=\"Planet Nine\" width=\"630\" height=\"407\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/161019-planet-nine-630x407.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/161019-planet-nine-768x496.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/161019-planet-nine-1240x801.jpg 1240w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-283243\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">An artist\u2019s conception shows Planet Nine with the sun in the far background. (Credit: R. Hurt \/ IPAC \/ Caltech)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Astronomers haven\u2019t yet seen Planet Nine, the theoretical world&nbsp;that some say lies far beyond Pluto\u2019s orbit, but they\u2019re seeing more phenomena that could be explained by its existence.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>In a paper accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal, astronomers say Planet Nine\u2019s gravitational influence could disrupt planetary orbits to account for that much of a tilt.<\/p>\n<p>Based on a close analysis of the movements of celestial objects in the Kuiper Belt, a broad ring of icy material at the solar system\u2019s edge, astronomers proposed in January&nbsp;that an unseen planet exists at an average distance about 20 times farther away from the sun than Neptune.<\/p>\n<p>Their calculations suggested that the planet, which they nicknamed Planet Nine, should be 10 times bigger than Earth and inclined somewhere around 30 degrees from the ecliptic plane.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause Planet Nine is so massive and has an orbit tilted compared to the other planets, the solar system has no choice but to slowly twist out of alignment,\u201d Caltech\u2019s Elizabeth Bailey, the study\u2019s lead author, said in a news release.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Planet Nine Tilts the Sun!  Q&amp;A with Caltech Astronomers\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/h72tABvkLAo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>A different team of researchers reported that the extremely&nbsp;eccentric orbits of four objects in the Kuiper Belt with the longest known orbital periods were&nbsp;best explained as the result of Planet Nine\u2019s gravitational influence.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe analyzed the data of these most distant Kuiper Belt objects and noticed something peculiar, suggesting they were in some kind of resonances with an unseen planet,\u201d the University of Arizona\u2019s Renu Malhotra said in a news release.<\/p>\n<p>Such resonances would help keep the Kuiper Belt objects in stable orbits.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" size-full wp-image-188079 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/pluto1.png\" alt=\"pluto\" width=\"250\" height=\"189\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/pluto1.png 250w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/pluto1-200x151.png 200w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/pluto1-132x100.png 132w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\"><br \/>\n<strong>Science journalist Alan Boyle<\/strong>&nbsp;is the author of &#8220;The Case for Pluto: How a Little Planet Made A Big Difference.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Malhotra and her colleagues stressed that their findings, published in&nbsp;the Astrophysical Journal Letters, shouldn\u2019t be regarded as proof that Planet Nine exists. But they said their data could help point to areas of the sky where the planet might be found.<\/p>\n<p>Both studies were presented in Pasadena, Calif.,&nbsp;during this week\u2019s joint meeting of the American Astronomical Society\u2019s Division for Planetary Sciences and the European Planetary Science Congress.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, the quest to spot Planet Nine continues. Caltech\u2019s Mike Brown, who participated in the discovery of&nbsp;several dwarf planets as well as the calculations for&nbsp;the Planet Nine hypothesis, says it may take three years or more to complete the sky survey.<\/p>\n<p><em>Elizabeth Bailey, Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown are the authors of \u201cSolar Obliquity Induced by Planet Nine.\u201d&nbsp;Renu Malhotra, Kathryn Volk and Xianyu Wang are the authors of \u201cCorralling a Distant Planet with Extreme Resonant Kuiper Belt Objects.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An artist\u2019s conception shows Planet Nine with the sun in the far background. (Credit: R. Hurt \/ IPAC \/ Caltech) Astronomers haven\u2019t yet seen Planet Nine, the theoretical world&nbsp;that some say lies far beyond Pluto\u2019s orbit, but they\u2019re seeing more phenomena that could be explained by its existence. Today, astronomers laid out evidence that the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2173,5103,5104],"class_list":["post-19201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-kuiper-belt","tag-planet-nine","tag-planet-x"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19201"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19201\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}