Posted on 07/26/2020 6:25:52 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
...for astronomer Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington DC, it was a much quieter affair. "It wasn't like there was a eureka moment," he says. "The evidence just built up slowly."
He's a master of understatement. Ever since he and his collaborator Chad Trujillo of Northern Arizona University, first published their suspicions about the unseen planet in 2014, the evidence has only continued to grow. Yet when asked how convinced he is that the new world, which he calls Planet X (though many other astronomers call it Planet 9), is really out there, Sheppard will only say: "I think it's more likely than unlikely to exist."
As for the rest of the astronomical community, in most quarters there is a palpable excitement about finding this world. Much of this excitement centres on the opening of a giant new survey telescope named after Vera C Rubin, the astronomer who, in the 1970s, discovered some of the first evidence for dark matter.
Scheduled to begin its full survey of the sky in 2022, the Rubin observatory could find the planet outright or provide the clinching circumstantial evidence that it's there.
Discovery of the planet would be a triumph, but also a disaster for existing theory about how the solar system was created.
"It would change everything we thought we knew about planet formation," says Sheppard, in another characteristic understatement. In truth, no one has a clue how such a large planet could form that far from the sun.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
Same here.
Jeez. All this time studying our little solar system and there’s a planet they think they’ve missed?
That’s what I am thinking plus we know our solar system had many close encounters over the life of it’s existence
Wow. Looks like a lot of meteors crashed into it.
A new theory is also making the rounds...
A micro-black hole.
SciTechDaily had a story just a few weeks ago:
https://scitechdaily.com/bold-plan-to-determine-if-planet-nine-is-a-primordial-black-hole/
A Harvard astronomer suggested we could easily locate the tiny flares that a micro-black hole would generate in the Oort Cloud.
Stephen Hawking theorized the existence of planet-mass black holes 50 years ago.
Don’t think so, if we had one the solar systems that passed near us would have been wreaked. Still possible, but remember that we don’t know if this type of object exists.
Seems unlikely.
We are talking Earth-level gravitational attraction, or even less.
But - as you point out - “do they exist” is still the most important question of all.
Planet X. The first Black Muslim planet?
* * *
Key question: are their actual Lives on that planet? Or mere Matter?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.