Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
THE SEARCH F
These badly behaving objects, which number between four objects into this strange configurationand that something
and a dozen, depending on who is counting, share another could be a huge, unknown planet, significantly more massive
orbital peculiarity as well. Like most KBOs, they orbit at an than Earth, lurking out at the edge of the solar system: a super
angle to the pancake-shaped plane where the planets live, ris- Earth (super Earths are planets up to roughly 10 times more
ing above the pancake for part of the time, then plunging massive than Earth). If such a hidden objectsometimes whim-
through to dip below for the rest. But unlike their frozen breth- sically called Planet Xexists, it would orbit at least 10 times
ren, these objects all pass through the planetary plane at the farther from the sun than Neptunetoo distant and too faint to
same time that they make their closest swing toward the sun. have been spotted by any telescope to date. Yet its sizable mass
Or, to use a term even many astronomers find arcane, they would have gravitational effects on the rest of the solar system
have remarkably similar arguments of perihelion (AOP). Nor- effects that might explain the odd orbits astronomers have seen.
mally, says Scott Sheppard, a planetary scientist at the Carne- We dont have definitive proof yet that theres a planetary-
gie Institution for Science, you would expect the arguments of mass body out there, says Nathan Kaib, a planet-formation
perihelion to have been randomized over the life of the solar theorist who is also at the Carnegie Institution. But something
system. Maybe it is just a coincidence that these few bodies funny is going on that we dont understand. And a growing
ended up with the same AOP: such a thing should happen, number of astronomers are putting stock in the once ridiculed
purely by chance, less than a few percent of the time. Those notion of the presence of a super Earth in our midst, Planet X.
odds are something like getting 10heads in a row when you flip As Kaib suggests, the evidence for a hidden planet is far
a coin: pretty unusual but nowhere near impossible. from ironclad. Many astronomers still doubt the idea, and even
But those 10 heads could also mean your coin is loaded, and those who invoke it as a possibility say they are not yet fully
the same goes for these KBOs. Something may have forced the convinced. The history of astronomy is full of invisible mystery
IN BRIEF
A number of distant, icy objects circling the sun with The evidence, they say, supports the idea that one or These bodies would be too far and dim to have shown
weird orbits have led some scientists to suspect there may more super Earthsplanets up to 10 times more up in any existing telescope, but future observatories
be more planets than we know of in the solar system. massive than Earthmay orbit far beyond Neptune. may be able to spot them, if they are out there.
2002 GB32
2005 RH52
Kuiper belt
Uranus
Pluto
Sun
Neptune
2000 CR105
2010 VZ98
2007 VJ305
2012 VP113
SOURCES: INTERNATIONAL ASTRONOMICAL UNION MINOR PLANET CENTERS LIST OF TRANSNEPTUNIAN OBJECTS (Kuiper belt object data);
2004 VN112
Eccentricity (orbit shape relative to a perfect circle)
0.5
WHERE PLANET X MIGHT LURK
A plot of the average distance these bodies travel from the sun as well as their eccentricity
a measure of how stretched out their orbits areunderscores their dierences from the familiar
Pluto members of the solar system. If a hidden super Earth planet exists, its properties could fall
Mercury within a wide range, but general estimates suggest a distance of between 200 and 1,000 AU.
Mars
Uranus
0.0
Neptune Current estimates put Planet X somewhere in this range (2001,000 AU)
Earth
Nobody had thought an upped the ante. Based on the orbits of Sedna,
2012 VP113 and smaller bodies, they argued
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN ONLINE Listen to a podcast about evidence for Planet X at ScientificAmerican.com/feb2016/planet-x