In January 2015, a team of astronomers made a surprising discovery that would alter our understanding of the Solar System. Deep in the far reaches of the outer Solar System, a ninth giant planet may be orbiting the Sun, which was nicknamed Planet 9 or Planet X.
The discovery was based on mathematical calculations, and the hypothetical planet has yet to be observed. However, a team of researchers from Harvard University will soon be able to determine the very nature of this mysterious object.
Scientists at the Black Hole Initiative, an interdisciplinary program at Harvard University that includes the fields of Astronomy, Physics, and Philosophy, have devised a new method for detecting black holes in the outer Solar System. And they hope that with this new method, they can discover if Planet 9 is really a planet or a black hole.
Their study was accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Black holes tend to lurk in the shadows, barely detectable. Cosmically massive beings are shrouded in darkness since light itself cannot escape its strong gravitational pull. However, the new method plans to find black holes based on the eruptions that are emitted if a comet intercepts its path.
“Because black holes are inherently dark, the radiation emitted by matter on its way to the mouth of the black hole is our only way to illuminate this dark environment,” said Avi Loeb, a science professor at Harvard University and team member. behind the new method, he said in a statement.
The team plans to use the Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time, a 10-year wide-field study of the skies planned to launch in 2022, to observe flashes of accretion by small objects from the Oort Cloud that interact with black holes in the outer Solar. System. The Oort Cloud is a theoretical cloud of small icy objects that surround the Sun at a distance of up to 3.2 light years away.
In doing so, the team hopes to be able to separate the planets from black holes.
“This method can detect or rule out mass-trapped black holes from planets at the edge of the Oort cloud, or around 100,000 astronomical units,” Amir Siraj, a Harvard university student and another team member, said in a statement. . statement.
And they hope to start with the mysterious Planet 9 as their first candidate, which they believe could be a black hole with a similar mass of a planet.
What is planet 9?
Astronomers at the California Institute of Technology (CALTECH) first announced the discovery of Planet 9 in 2015 based on mathematical evidence.
Evidence suggests that a planet the size of Neptune orbits our Sun in a highly elongated orbit that lies far beyond Pluto. This hypothetical planet can have a mass approximately 10 times greater than that of Earth and orbit approximately 20 times farther from the Sun than Neptune, the eighth and farthest known planet from the Sun.
Planet X can take 10,000 to 20,000 Earth years to complete an orbit around the Sun, according to NASA.
Although its existence is still theoretical until today, the direct detection of a ninth planet would be the first discovery of a new planet that orbits the Solar System in two centuries. So it’s a big problem.
“The outskirts of the solar system is our backyard. Finding Planet Nine is like discovering a cousin who lives in the shed behind his home that he has never heard of,” Loeb said. “It immediately raises questions: why is it there? How did it get its properties? Did it shape the history of the solar system? Is there more like that?”
However, some are skeptical that this is a full-fledged planet, and some suggest that Planet 9 is a grapefruit-sized black hole with a mass five to ten times greater than Earth, according to the researchers behind the New method.
By searching for flares emitted by a comet’s possible future interaction with Planet 9, the team hopes to demonstrate that it is actually a black hole. However, if such flares do not illuminate the distant cosmos, then perhaps we have a new planetary cousin.
