Planet 9 Might Be Lurking in the Darkness
Evidence is mounting for a ninth planet hiding in the outer solar system.
Babylonian priests first documented the 5 planets observable with the naked eye in the 8th century BCE. Priests like Nabu-rimanni, the first known Babylonian astronomer, created new mathematics to calculate the movement of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. It was not until a millennia later, thanks to the invention of the telescope, that Neptune and Uranus were found. William Herschel observed Uranus and Neptune in 1781, though it would take another century to confirm Neptune was a planet. Pluto was discovered and confirmed in 1930 and then sadly demoted to a dwarf planet in 2006.
No other planets have been discovered beyond Neptune’s orbit. In fact, solar system models suggest that the existence of a distant, massive body outside Neptune’s orbit is highly improbable. And then Sedna was discovered in 2003.
It’s All About the ETNOs
Dwarf planet Sedna is a particularly interesting trans-Neptunian object (TNO), bodies whose orbits extend beyond Neptune’s. While there are a multitude of TNOs, such as the millions of icy objects in the Kuiper Belt, nearly all of these follow a regular, predictable orbit between 30 and 50 AU. The astronomical unit (AU) is…
