Interview The family of planets in the solar system would it be enlarged? Wednesday, January 20, two American astronomers say in The Astronomical Journal (in English) have discovered a ninth planet in our solar system . Planet that would even the fifth largest after Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, after the two scientists. Yet no telescope could not see far. For spot in the universe, Konstantin Batygin and Michael Brown of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have resorted to scientific calculations. But how can we be sure of its existence? Will it be one day?
FranceTV info questioned Alessandro Morbidelli, research director at CNRS . and astronomer at the Observatoire de la Cote d’Azur, find out more about the circumstances of this discovery
FranceTV info: This planet is ten times larger than the Earth. How has it been possible hitherto miss it
Alessandro Morbidelli: First, because it is very far from us. It is estimated to stroll to a distance equivalent to 200 or even 1000 times the distance from Earth to the sun. And as it is very remote, it is very bright.
It is also very slow and we do not necessarily see move. It would circle the Sun 10 000-20 000 years, far from our 365 days. So it can be easily confused with a star that does not move.
Except that the star produces energy that shines, which is not the case on this planet. If one can speak of planet is identified because the mass has an influence on the nearest objects of it. Moreover, it is by this effect of attraction that American scientists have identified without seeing it. This planet “leaves his signature” in the universe.
If no one has seen, how can we be sure that this planet exists?
These are these disturbances on a set of objects that make us think that a planet is there. L es scientists noticed that the objects of the Kuiper Belt, which lies beyond Neptune, have orbits that are not randomly arranged. They are all in the same plane inclined of 15 degrees relative to the Earth. And in these areas, all objects in orbit have the same orientation.
It is the combination of these two observations is that there are only 0.007% chance for this to be a coincidence. There needs to be an agent which traps these objects in orbit to create such a phenomenon. And this agent is the famous ninth planet.
It will give him the name of a Roman god, as is the case of the other planets of the solar system.
Will we see one day?
Yes, but it’ll have to be patient and have a very powerful telescope. By ten years, we should have spotted. This seems long, but it’s not because we know that this planet is that we know where she is. Now we know its characteristics, we know what to look for, what is already advanced.
In general, to find an object in the sky, comparing two photos taken at 10 or 15 minute intervals to see what moved between. But because here we are facing a world that moves very slowly, he’ll have to confront images of the sky over time shifted. And it may take some time because we have no idea exactly where we should look. We know the trajectory of its orbit, but we do not know where it is on this race.
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