High winds prevented discovery of Planet Nine yet
View of parts of the Mauna Kea Observatory.
Copyright: Sasquatch (via WikimediaCommons) / CC BY-SA 3.0
Pasadena (USA) – The current search period for a so far only mathematically described additional large ninth planet that could lurk in the outer part of the solar system dragging local bodies is over and turned out unsuccessful. Caltech-Astronomer Mike Brown describes why and what stepps will be taken next in search for Planet Nine.
„Sadly, our most recent attempt at the Subaru Telescope was in terrible conditions“, describes Brown talking to Andreas Muller, editor of the German frontier-science newsblog „Grenzwissenschaft-Aktuell.de“ (GreWi).
„The winds were so high that atmospheric turbulence rendered the images nearly unusable. We are in the process of analyzing the data, just to be sure, but I do not expect much to come out of them.“
Astronomer Mike Brown (…find his website HERE).
Copyright: Caltech
Previous calculations and search within archived observation data from different astronomical surveys lead Brown and his colleague Konstantin Batygin, to know where to look for. Batygin co-authored the paper describing „P9“ for the first time in 2016 to explain abnormal orbits of a group of several distant trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) found mostly beyond the Kuiper belt.
„We are pretty convinced that Planet Nine is in the region of Orion/Taurus. Sadly this region is setting for the season, so we are going to have to try again in the fall“, says Brown. „The schedules are not set for that far out, so I don’t know for sure, but probably October when we restart for the new season.“
In the following extensive Webinar Mike Brown summarized the state of his search for Planet Nine in March 2017
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