5.2.16
Move Over Pluto: There's a New Planet 9 in Town
5.2.16Personally, I’ve always lamented the loss of Pluto as a ‘real’ planet. Losing Pluto is like losing a close friend who, despite ...
Personally, I’ve always lamented the loss of Pluto as a ‘real’
planet. Losing Pluto is like losing a
close friend who, despite knowing they weren’t good for you, you wanted to hold
on to for ‘old times’ sake’. Fortunately, just as we find ourselves moving on
from our weird planet-human relationship with ex-Planet 9, a new prospect emerges
on the horizon. Or rather, a prospective prospect. Researchers believe that
they have evidence of a new, better, larger Planet 9, one that would (for the
sake of our gentle hearts) not be torn away from us the way Pluto so cruelly
was. In a twist of fate, one of the lead
researchers to make this as of yet unconfirmed discovery is the self-proclaimed
‘Pluto-killer’ himself, Dr. Mike Brown at Caltech. Well, well, well, Mikey, looks like someone’s
come crawling back. All jokes aside, astronomers
Batygin and Brown have recently published in The Astronomical Journal describing their analysis of distant orbit
patterns that they say point to the existence of a new Planet 9, this one far
more massive than Pluto.