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Transcript
0:00 · as you watch this swaths of the
0:01 · astronomy Community are engaged in the
0:03 · greatest treasure hunt in over a century
0:06 · somewhere out on the fringes of the
0:08 · solar system it's thought a massive
0:10 · object might L one we've so far only
0:12 · been able to indirectly sense thanks to
0:14 · its gravitational effect on several
0:16 · smaller objects but which may soon be
0:18 · cited directly a here to unnoticed
0:20 · planet that would represent the First
0:21 · new addition to our Cosmic Family in
0:23 · living memory known imaginatively as
0:26 · Planet 9 this invisible world is
0:28 · currently only theoretical but since it
0:30 · was first proposed in 2016 evidence has
0:32 · been stacking up that it may be out
0:34 · there evidence that suggests we might
0:36 · soon have to rewrite the entire history
0:39 · of the solar system I mean at least
0:41 · that's the hope the plane sized pot of
0:43 · gold tempting astronomers to keep
0:45 · following this Cosmic rainbow yet as
0:47 · we're about to see the science
0:49 · surrounding Planet 9 remains unsettled
0:52 · it could be Humanity's next great
0:53 · discovery or it could be something far
0:55 · weirder join us today as we turn our
0:58 · attention to the edges of our solar
0:59 · system and try and separate fact from
1:01 · fiction regarding our missing neighbor
1:03 · ironically the idea of a missing ninth
1:05 · planet was born at the exact same moment
1:07 · astronomers were reducing the official
1:09 · tally down to eight the era was the
1:11 · beginning of the 21st century an era
1:14 · that had seen a Cascade of discoveries
1:16 · about the outer solar system along with
1:18 · major controversy first the discoveries
1:20 · back in 1992 scientists have finally
1:22 · confirmed the existence of the Kyper
1:24 · belt a ring of objects beyond the orbit
1:27 · of Neptune filled with icy bodies but it
1:29 · was only as the new century dawned that
1:32 · the size of some of these bodies started
1:34 · to become clear between 2002 and 2005
1:37 · researchers led by Mike Brown cited six
1:39 · dwarf planets that rivaled Pluto it was
1:41 · this last fact that sparked controversy
1:44 · with one of the Newfound dwarf planets
1:46 · arys having a greater mass than the
1:47 · former ninth planet astronomers began to
1:50 · question whether poor old Pluto is even
1:53 · really a planet at all infamously this
1:55 · led to a 2006 meeting of the
1:57 · international astronomical Union where
1:59 · attendees narrowly voted to strip Pluto
2:01 · of its status yet even as kids
2:03 · everywhere began unhappily redesigning
2:05 · their science fair solar system models
2:07 · there were already signs emerging that
2:08 · there might be a ninth planet after all
2:10 · that while Pluto may be too small to
2:12 · really count that didn't mean there
2:14 · wasn't another larger World lurking out
2:16 · there the first clue came from one of
2:18 · the new dwarf planet candidates sedna
2:21 · Unlike Pluto arys or other newcomers
2:24 · like maam Mara or how mayor sedna didn't
2:26 · behave like a regular Kyper belt object
2:29 · instead it had an extremely weird orbit
2:32 · one that took it from a closest approach
2:34 · to the sun of 84 Au where 1 Au is the
2:37 · distance from Earth to our star all the
2:39 · way out to a furthest point of 937 Au a
2:43 · bizarre elongated orbit that takes over
2:45 · 11,000 years at the time it was assumed
2:48 · that SED was simply a weird one off a
2:50 · freaky little world doing its own freaky
2:52 · thing on the outskirts of the solar
2:53 · system but then we began to locate and
2:55 · investigate more and more objects in the
2:57 · region and it started to look like maybe
2:59 · set no wasn't alone trans neptunian
3:01 · objects or tnos is the name given to
3:04 · small icy bodies just beyond the orbit
3:06 · of Neptune leftover building blocks of
3:08 · the solar system they're often quite
3:10 · hard to detect although we think tnos
3:12 · larger than 100 kilm May number in the
3:14 · hundreds of thousands so far we've only
3:16 · located about 4,000 of them but even
3:18 · with this small sample size we can see
3:20 · that some of them behave in ways our
3:22 · model of the solar system doesn't
3:23 · predict first there are the detached
3:26 · tnos accounting for about 10% of all
3:28 · tnos the these little dudes have orbits
3:31 · that aren't influenced by Neptune while
3:33 · a models say a few should exist it's
3:35 · very hard to account for the sheer
3:37 · number of them next you have a bunch of
3:38 · TNS with orbits at Wild angles that
3:41 · means they zip around the Sun at a tilt
3:42 · of more than 45° another thing our
3:44 · models don't predict happening on such a
3:46 · large scale finally there are the tnos
3:49 · with such odd orbits that they're
3:51 · sometimes dubbed etnos extreme trans
3:54 · neptunian objects numbering about a
3:56 · dozen they're scattered in such a wild
3:58 · way that some new gravitational s ources
4:00 · seemingly needed something that threw
4:02 · them out of alignment in the distant
4:03 · past and now keeps them trapped in their
4:06 · eccentric dances the CTIC astronomers
4:08 · Mike Brown and Constantine batan there
4:10 · was one simple explanation in 2016 they
4:14 · published a paper suggesting sedna and
4:16 · five other etnos were likely being
4:18 · influenced by a hidden world one with
4:21 · between five and 10 times the mass of
4:23 · Earth in short a missing ninth planet in
4:27 · the seven years since that Cosmos
4:28 · shaking announc M the theory has been
4:30 · refined today is thought the planet 9 is
4:32 · smaller than originally estimated closer
4:34 · to six times the mass of Earth rather
4:36 · than 10 there are also now 11 TN
4:38 · identified as having been perturbed by
4:40 · its orbit rather than just six still the
4:43 · basic outlines of the theory remain
4:45 · intact the idea that there may be a
4:47 · whole other world Beyond Neptune a
4:49 · neighbor Humanity has remained ignorant
4:51 · of even as we've gained the ability to
4:54 · detect planets in other solar systems if
4:56 · that's the case and another planet is
4:58 · really there then it raises an obvious
5:00 · question what's it like planets in our
5:03 · solar system are divided into three
5:05 · distinct categories you have the rocky
5:07 · terrestrial worlds Earth Venus Mars and
5:09 · Mercury then you have the gas giants
5:11 · like Jupiter and Saturn and finally
5:12 · you've got the ice giants including not
5:14 · just Neptune but also the gassy Glory
5:17 · that is Uranus if you were feeling
5:20 · generous you could also add to that list
5:21 · the dwarf planets but the main point
5:24 · isn't whether our solar system contains
5:25 · three or four classes of Worlds but that
5:28 · whatever the true number finding Planet
5:30 · 9 would increase that total that's
5:33 · because Planet 99's estimated Mass Falls
5:35 · between that of Earth and Neptune
5:37 · meaning one of two outcomes is likely
5:38 · it's either a rocky super Earth or a
5:41 · gaseous sub Neptune either way finding
5:43 · it would be extremely exciting imagine
5:46 · for a second how paleontologists would
5:48 · feel finding a living Mammoth right now
5:51 · we only know these creatures from
5:52 · tracers left over from bygone eras to
5:55 · suddenly go from working with vague
5:56 · outlines to having a living creature to
5:58 · study would be pretty mind expanding in
6:01 · a way that's sort of how planetary
6:03 · scientists would feel discovering a sub
6:05 · Neptune in our backyard obviously the
6:08 · analogy isn't perfect sub Neptunes are
6:09 · extremely common across the Galaxy
6:11 · whereas living mammoths are uncommon to
6:13 · the point of being non-extinct still it
6:16 · hopefully gives you some vague idea of
6:18 · how awesome such a find would be how it
6:20 · would help unlock the secrets of
6:22 · planetary formation in both distant star
6:24 · systems and inside our own and that last
6:26 · point there is key so far from the Sun
6:29 · there's no no way a sub Neptune or super
6:31 · Earth could have been created where it
6:33 · now orbits instead it must have been
6:36 · born closer in only to be flung outwards
6:38 · during an era of chaos caused by
6:40 · Jupiter's early movements some think the
6:42 · reason Uranus is tilted on its side is
6:44 · due to a chance interaction with a
6:46 · migrating planet nine alternatively it
6:48 · might have once belonged to another star
6:50 · only to be captured by our Sun's gravity
6:52 · as the two systems swept by one another
6:54 · long ago of course this is all just
6:57 · speculation a towering edifice of of
6:59 · theory built ATP a bunch of extremely
7:01 · distant objects moving in some weird
7:03 · ways yet that doesn't mean the
7:04 · foundations for this Tower aren't solid
7:07 · after all Humanity has already made
7:09 · major planetary discoveries based on
7:10 · orbital disturbances most famously this
7:13 · includes discovering Neptune ever since
7:15 · William herel first sted hungrily at
7:17 · Uranus people have been aware that
7:19 · planet 7's orbit was kind of off like
7:22 · something big was influencing it in 1846
7:25 · Urban Laria did the calculations and
7:27 · pinpointed exactly where that unseen
7:29 · object was the same evening he alerted a
7:31 · German astronomer and Neptune was
7:34 · discovered it's an episode that shows
7:36 · the value of paying attention to
7:37 · seemingly small irregularities
7:39 · consciously or not today's astronomers
7:42 · are all hoping to repeat laria's trick
7:44 · and discover Planet 9 that is if we
7:47 · haven't discovered it already in the
7:49 · cases of Uranus Neptune Pluto and ays
7:53 · all four bodies turned out to have been
7:55 · cited long before their official
7:57 · discoveries allbe by people who didn't
7:58 · realize what they were looking at
8:00 · Neptune for example was recorded by
8:01 · Galileo in 1612 but mistaken for a star
8:04 · a photographic plate of Aris meanwhile
8:06 · has been found dating to 1955 that means
8:09 · there's a fair chance that if Planet 9
8:10 · exists signs of it are already hiding in
8:13 · some forgotten or overlooked data
8:15 · somewhere we even have a potential
8:16 · candidate back in 1983 astronomer
8:18 · Michael Rowan Robinson undertook a
8:20 · planet Hunting Expedition using the very
8:22 · first infrared Space Telescope at the
8:25 · time he thought he' found nothing but
8:26 · after Brown and bat again published
8:28 · their planet theory he went back and
8:31 · Revisited his work there he found three
8:33 · potential matches for the missing World
8:35 · although the low quality of the
8:36 · detections makes confirming them
8:38 · impossible and that last Point brings us
8:40 · neatly on to our next chapter with seven
8:42 · years of searching under our Collective
8:43 · belts you might be starting to wonder
8:46 · why if we know roughly where it should
8:48 · be we haven't found Planet 9 the answer
8:52 · sadly is that finding a missing Planet
8:53 · at such distances even one close in size
8:56 · to Neptune is near impossible of after
8:59 · refining their work Brown and bat again
9:01 · recently made a welcome announcement
9:03 · rather than an orbital journey of more
9:04 · than 18,000 years they instead expect
9:06 · Planet 9 to circle the sun once every
9:08 · 7,400 years that means it should be
9:10 · closer and brighter than initially
9:12 · anticipated and therefore easier to see
9:14 · in theory the news was great slicing
9:15 · over 10,000 years off an object's orbit
9:17 · sharply reduces the amount of distance
9:19 · it covers in Practical terms though an
9:21 · object that takes over 7,000 years to
9:23 · orbit the Sun is still capable of
9:24 · traveling very very far away from us
9:27 · Pluto's orbit for comparison takes Sun
9:29 · 250 years and while sedna's 11,400 year
9:32 · orbit is longer than Planet 9es sedna
9:35 · always discovered when it was near perah
9:37 · helon the point when an object is
9:39 · closest to the Sun by contrast Planet 9
9:41 · is thought to currently be at its
9:43 · furthest point that means looking for a
9:45 · very very tiny spec moving very very
9:48 · slowly against the Milky Way Starfield
9:50 · so far from the Sun the missing world
9:52 · will be reflecting very little light
9:54 · making it hard to detect invisible
9:55 · wavelengths it temperature is also
9:57 · likely to be very very low perhaps
9:59 · causing it to only radiate the far
10:02 · infrared Spectrum the word far there is
10:05 · the important part because it means it
10:06 · will be invisible to even the James web
10:08 · Space Telescope which is incapable of
10:10 · observing things in the far infrared
10:11 · range indeed observing extremely distant
10:14 · things in infrared can come with its own
10:15 · set of problems a 2022 study by cedrick
10:18 · Chris and sergeants reported in Universe
10:20 · today using two infrared Sky surveys
10:22 · taken 20 years apart initially found 500
10:25 · potential candidates for Planet 9 in the
10:26 · data but when they dug into them
10:28 · individually they found the majority
10:29 · were Galactic cirrus clouds of
10:31 · Interstellar dust that radiate in
10:33 · infrared since Planet 9 is assumed to
10:35 · currently be hidden by the Milky Way
10:37 · Starfield such false positives would
10:39 · plague any surge now these are not
10:42 · insurmountable problems but overcoming
10:44 · them will require not just superhuman
10:45 · patience and lots and lots of telescope
10:47 · time but also knowing exactly where to
10:49 · look when we say something like Planet 9
10:51 · is currently moving against the mway
10:53 · Starfield it can be a little misleading
10:55 · as it makes it sound like we've got a
10:56 · rough location but this location is
10:59 · rough in the same way that dropping a
11:01 · marble out a jet flying over the United
11:03 · States and declaring it landed in the
11:04 · midwest is sure it's technically correct
11:07 · but it won't really help anyone wanting
11:08 · to track down and find that marble as
11:10 · two planetary scientists explained in an
11:12 · article for conversation the problem is
11:14 · that these telescopes usually have a
11:16 · very small field of view it is like
11:18 · using a microscope to scan a very large
11:20 · area for something small that we've
11:22 · dropped this helps explain why so many
11:24 · Searchers since 2016 have come up
11:26 · empty-handed space Australia helpfully
11:28 · listed some of the key instruments and
11:29 · surveys so far used the wise telescope
11:32 · the Gia spacecraft the test telescope
11:34 · the dark energy survey and the Catalina
11:36 · Sky survey as well as looking through
11:38 · old data from stuff like the Siding
11:40 · Spring survey and the zwiki transient
11:42 · facility survey all turned up nothing
11:45 · nor is it really possible to use the
11:47 · orbits of tnos disrupted by Planet 9 to
11:50 · pinpoint its location because we know
11:51 · comparatively little about the Kyer belt
11:54 · it's tough to really zero in on objects
11:56 · that are behaving in weird ways and draw
11:58 · conclusions from on them if we could see
12:00 · and understand the belt's whole
12:02 · structure we would be able to pinpoint
12:03 · areas where a large planet has disrupted
12:06 · things at the moment though we're
12:07 · working with around a dozen objects that
12:10 · may seem to be orbiting weirdly just as
12:12 · a side effect of selection bias if
12:15 · that's the case then Planet 9 may be
12:17 · nothing more than a goost in the data a
12:19 · phantom conjured Bon squinting at a
12:21 · blurry and incomplete picture and hoping
12:23 · desperately to see something luckily
12:25 · combining all surveys and simply
12:26 · pointing telescopes at trunks of the
12:27 · night sky and hoping aren't the only
12:30 · ways to track down a missing Planet it
12:32 · may be that we're soon able to narrow
12:34 · down our hidden neighbors location using
12:36 · some pretty clever methods as Elton John
12:39 · once sang of Mars planet 9 in fact is
12:41 · cold as hell but you know what might not
12:43 · be so cold any moons the planet has of
12:46 · all the planets in our solar system only
12:48 · two Mercury and Venus do not have any
12:50 · moons that means it's highly likely
12:52 · Planet 9 has some companions on its
12:54 · lonely Journey Through the void
12:56 · especially when you consider the region
12:57 · it inhabits is full of teer as the most
12:59 · massive gravity Source around it would
13:01 · be amazing if Planet 9 hadn't captured
13:04 · at least a few TN over the years just
13:06 · look at Neptune there are good reasons
13:08 · to believe its large Moon Triton is a
13:10 · former dwarf planet dragged into the ice
13:12 · giants orbit at this stage you might be
13:15 · wondering why all of this matters surely
13:17 · any moon so far away from the Sun is
13:19 · going to be equally cold and therefore
13:22 · even harder to see than its host World
13:25 · well perhaps not education University of
13:27 · Hong Kong scholar man her Chan recently
13:30 · released a pre-print paper examining the
13:32 · role of tidal heating on any moons
13:34 · Planet 9 may have tidal heating is a
13:36 · super interesting thing even for Layman
13:38 · such as ourselves the result of gravity
13:40 · pulling on an object in a non-uniform
13:42 · way creating friction and thus heating
13:44 · it's thought to be the mechanism that
13:46 · keeps subsurface oceans liquid on moons
13:48 · like Enceladus Europa and Triton in this
13:51 · case though the paper isn't concerned
13:53 · with liquid water but with the heat that
13:56 · would be released from this process that
13:58 · would make Planet 9's moons potentially
14:00 · hotter than the planet itself meaning
14:02 · wouldst stand a better chance of picking
14:03 · them up in infrared surveys of the night
14:05 · sky it's a fascinating concept and just
14:07 · one of a recent slew of bold theories
14:10 · put out on how we could detect the
14:11 · invisible World another involves using
14:13 · an even wider mechanism the path of an
14:15 · Interstellar asteroid cnos
14:19 · 201418 is most famous as the meteor that
14:22 · crashed offshore in Papa New Guinea in
14:24 · 2014 and later became the target of a
14:26 · sea dredging Expedition led by lobe who
14:29 · claims that it might be a piece of alien
14:31 · equipment but whether or not it's the
14:33 · staff of fox mold's wet dreams that may
14:36 · have a far more pric use according to
14:39 · Hector soas Navaro and ignatio Trio
14:42 · Cabrera of The Institute astrophysic de
14:44 · canarius by tracing its path back across
14:46 · the solar system we can see whether it
14:48 · interacted with a large object on its
14:50 · way in 2023 they published a paper doing
14:53 · just that in it they demonstrated how
14:55 · the asteroid likely came from the region
14:56 · of space where Planet 9 is is most
14:59 · likely to be located if the planet is
15:01 · indeed there then the odds of the meteor
15:03 · interacting with its gravity are
15:04 · something like
15:06 · 99.9% that means if we can figure out
15:08 · when cnos S14 entered our solar system
15:11 · we can plot its trajectory backwards and
15:13 · pinpoint where Planet 9 was when the
15:15 · meteor brushed by circus novaro and
15:18 · Cabrera think this places the missing
15:20 · World quote very close to the point
15:22 · where the constellations Aries Taurus
15:24 · and cus meet now to return to our
15:26 · analogy from the last chapter having
15:27 · confirmation of this world would be like
15:29 · narrowing our airplane drop marbles
15:31 · location down from the Midwest to
15:33 · somewhere in downtown De Moine still a
15:36 · huge area to search but one that's now
15:39 · in the Realms of possibility but perhaps
15:41 · the planet 9 location Mission we like
15:43 · the most is the one that would involve
15:45 · probing Uranus the most recent decad or
15:47 · survey selected as highest priority for
15:49 · NASA a dedicated mission to Planet 7
15:51 · when it finally launches assuming the US
15:53 · Congress can settle down long enough to
15:55 · start funding science again the craft
15:57 · will spend between 10 and 15 years
15:59 · simply traveling through the void
16:00 · between Jupiter and its Target rather
16:03 · than an annoying pause though that
16:05 · decade could prove invaluable to science
16:07 · when an interplanetary craft is on a
16:09 · long cruise like that it occasionally
16:11 · checks in with a station on Earth you
16:13 · know just a call to say where it is and
16:15 · how it's doing so we know it's not about
16:17 · to go flying off course or activate any
16:19 · hidden monoliths or anything normally
16:21 · these pings are relatively rare but if
16:24 · we could make the Uranian probe fire off
16:26 · enough we'd be able to see over time how
16:29 · Planet 99's distant gravity affected the
16:31 · craft it would be a subtle effect a near
16:34 · invisible tugging but it would also be
16:36 · enough for us to use that data to narrow
16:38 · down Planet 99's location perhaps enough
16:40 · so that astronomers could even be
16:42 · convinced to start pointing powerful
16:44 · telescopes in that direction knowing
16:46 · that they had a decent probability of
16:47 · finding something of course NASA won't
16:49 · be ready to investigate the Majesty of
16:51 · Uranus for several years that means
16:52 · there's a good chance we'll have located
16:54 · the planet long beforehand the ver
16:56 · Reuben observatory in Chile is current
16:58 · ly the most exciting science project not
17:00 · enough people are talking about an 8.4 M
17:03 · telescope it will photograph the entire
17:05 · visible night sky every couple of days
17:07 · producing mountains of data that
17:08 · researchers will be able to sift through
17:10 · looking for signs of unknown objects if
17:12 · Planet 9 really is out there this is the
17:15 · most likely way will find it what if it
17:16 · isn't what if the VC reubin comes online
17:19 · only to return nothing avoid where the
17:21 · missing sub Neptune should rightly be
17:24 · incredibly that might be even more
17:25 · exciting than actually finding it
17:27 · perhaps the most interesting thing about
17:29 · planet 9 is its inherent sense of
17:30 · mystery the feeling that it could be the
17:32 · world brown and badan theorized back in
17:35 · 2016 or it could be something totally
17:37 · different you know how you sometimes see
17:39 · images of old maps that Drew on
17:40 · hypothetical Australia before it was
17:42 · ever actually cited well that's kind of
17:45 · where we are with Planet 9 we think it's
17:47 · out there we think we know roughly where
17:49 · it is beyond that we might as well just
17:52 · write here be Mysteries so if it turns
17:54 · out the planet N9 isn't a missing
17:55 · superar or a sub Neptune what might it
17:58 · be the sist theory is that it really is
18:00 · a planet just not one on the scale that
18:02 · brown and ban imagined the trouble with
18:05 · a sub Neptune is that it would be by far
18:07 · the most powerful gravitational force in
18:09 · the region so powerful that models
18:11 · predict it would mess up the orbits of
18:13 · far more TN than we're currently
18:14 · witnessing in 2023 this led planetary
18:17 · scientists Patrick safia Leck liaa and
18:20 · takishi ETO to theorize in a paper
18:22 · published in the astronomical journals
18:24 · Planet 9 might be smaller small enough
18:26 · to be comparable with Earth there is
18:28 · research showed that a Planet Air 1.5
18:30 · times the mass of Earth orbiting between
18:32 · 250 and 500 astronomical units from the
18:34 · Sun could account for all the weird tnos
18:37 · that we're aware of especially if its
18:39 · orbit is tilted to 45° that would make
18:41 · Planet 9 not some hidden giant but a
18:43 · real life mest a near Twin of our worlds
18:47 · likely cast outward at some point in the
18:49 · early solar system to the icy Realm of
18:51 · the Kyper bels this though is just the
18:54 · sanest explanation further up the
18:56 · weirdness scale You' get to what we like
18:58 · likely be the most exciting outcome of
19:00 · all that planet 9 is actually a
19:02 · primordial black hole way back in 1971
19:05 · Steven Hawking theorized how the extreme
19:07 · environment created just after the big
19:09 · bang could have created pockets of
19:11 · matter so dense they collapsed into
19:13 · black holes unlike regular black holes
19:15 · which are born of collapsing Stars these
19:17 · primordial versions could be anywhere in
19:18 · the universe they could also be much
19:20 · smaller beach ball siiz things with the
19:23 · mass of a planet to date we've never
19:25 · seen any evidence for these objects all
19:27 · of which makes the idea that they might
19:29 · be lurking out there on the edges of our
19:31 · solar system immensely exciting aside
19:34 · from proving Hawkings Theory such a
19:36 · black hole would also be close enough
19:38 · for us to potentially send a prob about
19:40 · to study it something we likely won't
19:42 · have the tech to do with regular black
19:43 · holes for hundreds or even thousands of
19:45 · years the downside of Planet 9 really
19:47 · being a black hole is that it would be
19:49 · insanely hard to detect aside from
19:51 · giving off no light a primordial black
19:53 · hole would also be small enough to fit
19:55 · into a backpack rather than searching
19:58 · for for a dropped marble in the midwest
19:59 · this would be like searching for a
20:01 · single grain of sand as a paper on fizz.
20:04 · org noted this small size would make
20:07 · gravitational lensing and gamma ray
20:08 · emissions too faint to register once
20:10 · again though the ver ruin Observatory
20:12 · could well ride to the rescue here
20:14 · according to a paper by RV lob and a
20:16 · mere Sage small comets would ride into
20:18 · the path of such a primordial black hole
20:20 · at least a couple of times a year when
20:22 · that happens they would be ripped apart
20:23 · producing a momentary flash a Flash The
20:26 · Observatory should be able to see as lob
20:27 · told the new York Times quote our
20:29 · calculations show that the flares will
20:31 · be bright enough for the Vera rubben
20:33 · Observatory to rule out or confirm
20:34 · Planet 9 as a black hole within one year
20:37 · of monitoring the sky currently regular
20:39 · observations by the telescope are
20:41 · expected to start in 2025 that means we
20:43 · could have a definitive answer before
20:46 · this video has even been up on YouTube
20:48 · for 3 years there are other theories too
20:51 · that planet 9 may actually be a clump of
20:52 · dark matter that it could be the exposed
20:55 · core of a world long ago destroyed but
20:57 · time is running short and we need to
20:59 · stop this video somewhere so that's how
21:01 · things stand at the moment with a
21:02 · mystery on the edge of our solar system
21:04 · one that's bedeviled scientists for
21:06 · seven years now and may do so for
21:08 · several more years to come in a way this
21:10 · makes our era an exciting time to be
21:12 · alive an era when we may be standing on
21:15 · the cusp of a great discovery one that
21:17 · would capture the world's imagination in
21:18 · a way unseen since Urban larier
21:21 · accurately predicted Neptune's position
21:23 · in the night sky on the other hand it
21:25 · also makes this something of a
21:26 · frustrating game no that there's a great
21:28 · mystery out there waiting to be solved
21:30 · one Future Folk will take for granted
21:32 · but which for now at least remains
21:34 · stubbornly out of our grasp what the
21:36 · coming years will hold for the hunt for
21:38 · Planet 9 remains to be seen but we feel
21:40 · confident in saying that whatever
21:42 · happens it will undoubtedly be a search
21:45 · to remember