Earlier this year, Caltech scientists Michael Brown and Konstantin Batygin provided compelling evidence that there is another planet in the solar system. It is located much farther than the others and has not yet been seen through a telescope, but indirect evidence clearly indicates its presence. In this article, we will share 9 facts that are already known about this new planet.
New planet discovered by man who "killed" Pluto
One of the discoverers of the new ninth planet, Michael Brown, is known as "the man who killed Pluto." It was on his initiative that Pluto was deprived of the official status of the planet. And in 2010, Brown even wrote the book How I Killed Pluto and Why It Was Inevitable. Many in the scientific world even joked that Brown's discovery of a new planet was an attempt to rehabilitate Pluto for “killing” Pluto, because the decision to deprive him of his planetary status was extremely negatively perceived by society.
It's an ice giant
Unlike Pluto and Eridu, which Brown also discovered, the new planet is supposedly a gas-ice giant and looks something like Neptune. Scientists believe that the new planet has a diameter of 2-4 times the Earth's diameter and a mass of about 10 Earth's, which puts it in this indicator between the terrestrial planets and giant planets.
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She is very far away
Neptune is the planet farthest from the Suns, located at a distance of 4.5 billion km. And the new ninth planet is 20 times further away. This is a lot, even by astronomical standards. For comparison: not so long ago, the NASA New Horizons probe flew to Pluto, this journey took him 9 years. On the flight to the new ninth planet, he would have spent 54 years. And this is only in the best scenario, when the planet would be as close as possible to the Sun. It would take New Horizons about 350 years to reach the farthest point in its orbit.
It is the largest and longest orbit around the Sun
Due to the fact that the new ninth planet is very far from the Sun around which it revolves, the period of its revolution is extremely long. Only according to the most modest calculations of scientists, a complete revolution around the star takes this planet from 10 to 20 thousand years. Just think about this figure. Even if the lowest limit of 10 thousand years is accurate, then the last time this planet was in the same place as now, when mammoths still walked on the earth, and the number of people around the world did not exceed 5 million. The entire history of mankind, from the earliest development of agriculture to the invention of spaceships, would fit in just one year on this planet.
The new planet could be the "fifth giant"
Back in 2011, scientists, based on the structure of the Kuiper belt, began to put forward assumptions that in our solar system, most likely there was a fifth giant planet. Such assumptions were made in an attempt to understand how the complex of large icy asteroids in the Kuiper belt formed, which stick together and move in a strictly constant orbit. Having checked with the help of computer simulations about 100 possible scenarios for the development of events, scientists came to the conclusion that at the dawn of the inception of the solar system, it most likely had the fifth giant planet.
According to scientists, it was like this: about 4 billion years ago, a giant planet by the force of its gravitational field "pushed" Neptune out of its then occupied orbit next to Jupiter and Saturn. Neptune found itself "on the outskirts" of the solar system behind Uranus. During this "flight", Neptune took with him pieces of the primary material of the solar system, which were then thrown out by its gravitational forces outside its current orbit and formed the core of the present Kuiper belt. The whole question was, what kind of planet was it? Uranus, Jupiter and Saturn were not suitable for this role. Now, with the advent of the new ninth planet, something has begun to clear up. Scientists suggest that having done their "dirty work", she apparently flew into distant space, thrown out of the solar system by the forces of gravitational interaction with other planets.
New planet could help in interstellar travel
The problem with space is that it is very, very large. Therefore, one of the biggest problems in interstellar travel is that we simply don't have enough fuel to keep the ship's engines running for many years. In the case of probes and interplanetary reconnaissance ships, scientists have long and quite successfully used such a trick as the "gravity assist", which allows the ship to accelerate due to the gravity of a large planet. For the Voyager and New Horizons probes, Jupiter was such a planet. But if (when) we want to explore interstellar space, then the new ninth planet can become such a planet for us. Problems can arise only if its density is less than the density of Neptune, then the increase in speed from such a maneuver around it will be extremely small. In any case, we will be able to find out about this only when we study the new planet more carefully.
Conspiracy theories call it the "planet of death."
It's time to get used to the fact that every time after the discovery of new objects in our solar system, various adherents of conspiracy theories begin to call these objects the harbingers of an imminent apocalypse. Usually such a role is assigned to comets and asteroids. But these guys also could not pass by the discovery of a new ninth planet. Almost immediately after the announcement of scientists, various Internet prophets proclaimed that the new planet is the very planet "Nibiru". It is assumed that "Nibiru" is a mythical planet that the secret government knows about, but carefully hides this fact from people, because one day "Nibiru" will pass very close to the Earth, which will provoke destructive earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, which in the end will lead to the apocalypse.
And it really may turn out to be a "planet of death."
No, of course, next to the Earth, this new ninth planet is unlikely to ever pass, this is absolutely fantastic. However, there is, albeit not great, but still real chances that she may be indirectly guilty of the apocalypse. The fact is that not only probes and spaceships can use the enormous gravitational force of this planet for a gravitational maneuver. The same can happen with an asteroid. Using its gravity, the new ninth planet can literally "launch" a huge rock at us, from which we cannot dodge. Of course, the likelihood that this will happen in such a huge space is negligible, but still it is.
It may not exist at all
And this is perhaps the most important thing to know about the new ninth planet. Nobody has seen this planet yet. Astronomers only assume the existence of this planet, based on statistical anomalies of the orbits of minor planets that have developed over billions of years. That is, according to the behavior of neighboring objects, which are affected by some gravitational force, scientists assume that this force may come from a large planet. Only visual detection can confirm its existence. However, given the fact that the planet is moving very slowly and is far from Earth, this makes it very difficult to find. Brown and Batygin have already booked time with the Japanese Subaru telescope at the observatory in Hawaii. Brown estimates that it will take about five years to survey most of the region of the sky where the planet might be.