A new planet has been discovered in the solar system. This discovery was made by a California astrophysicist technical university Konstantin Batygin. The author of the sensation admits that no one was specifically looking for the ninth planet. The discovery, which is destined to become the main thing in astronomy for two and a half centuries, as often happens, was made by accident.

The strange anomaly that led scientists to the discovery of the ninth planet

Konstantin was approached by his colleague, an astronomer from California, Michael Brown. He asked the astrophysicist to make calculations that would explain why some objects in the solar system behave in a strange way. It was about the Kuiper belt. This is the region farthest from the Sun. There is space debris leftover: small asteroids, blocks of ice, stardust. It is from there that many comets come from that plow our system. Astronomers around the world have been following the Kuiper belt very closely for a long time, but only now an important discovery has been made.

If you examine the Kuiper belt, then this is a field of icy debris outside the orbit of Neptune. Most of them walk in very eccentric and elongated orbits, conditionally randomly oriented in space. But if you concentrate on the most distant orbits, those that are farthest away from the Sun at , you can see that they are all oriented in approximately the same direction and lie in approximately the same plane. It was this orbital alignment that seemed anomalous to scientists.

It was this anomaly that Konstantin Batygin was asked to explain from a mathematical point of view. The astrophysicist suggested that objects in the Kuiper belt are guided by an unknown large cosmic body. This gave astronomers their first clue in centuries. The atlas of the solar system, familiar to everyone, is incomplete. There must be another planet, and it's gigantic.

According to the new model, the ninth planet has a mass equal to ten or twenty Earth masses, that is, it is comparable in principle to Uranus and Neptune. Knowing only the mass, it is impossible to accurately judge its composition. However, one can compare it with other planets and assume that the ninth planet was formed from the same materials as other planets with a similar mass.

After analyzing the data on the mass and size of the ninth planet, Konstantin Batygin suggested that, most likely, this is a gas giant, exactly the same as Uranus and Neptune.

Sumerian reference to the ninth planet

The mention that in the solar system there is a planet with an irregular orbit, different from all the others, is found among the ancient Sumerians. It was called Nibiru. The planet Nibiru, judging by the legends of the Sumerians, entered the solar system at a fairly high speed. She moved along an elongated epileptic orbit, moving away from the Sun at a considerable distance, then returning. The circulation period was 3600 years. So it follows from the chronicle of the Sumerians.

Sumerian history is carved on clay tablets that are almost 6,000 years old. It follows from them that once, on the territory of Mesopotamia, a highly developed civilization suddenly arose. The Sumerians had very detailed knowledge of the cosmos. They believed that Nibiru was not a lifeless planet. It was inhabited by creatures similar to people - the Anunnaki. They arrived on Earth to. According to one version, the aliens needed the precious metal to save their planet, which was rapidly losing its atmosphere. Gold was crushed, turning it into virtually dust, and this allowed heat and light to linger on Nibiru, preserving the conditions for life.

For hundreds of thousands of years, the Anunnaki developed the deposits on their own, but then, as the Sumerian chronicles tell, there was an uprising of workers. The work was too hard. I had to. But the anthropoid apes that then lived on the planet were too primitive even for such work. According to myths, the Anunnaki went to. By mixing the DNA of earthlings and their own, they got a completely the new kind. They created more so that a person could do more difficult work than a monkey.

On Sumerian clay tablets, this process is depicted as two snakes intertwined. This symbol is very reminiscent of, and maybe this Sumerian myth explains one of the biggest historical mysteries. Why still can not find an intermediate link between the monkey and modern man. If you believe the ancients, then it simply cannot be. and ape are actually genetically distant from each other.

After all, even on our own planet, we find life in the most unexpected places and types. In the ocean at a depth of thousands of meters live creatures that can withstand tremendous pressure. And recently, scientists from Princeton University discovered that underground, at a depth of almost three kilometers, life is teeming. Bacteria live there, which use uranium ore as. If we record such amazing phenomena on earth, then what can we say about deep space? On the ninth planet? There, for example, it does not have to be an atmosphere, or it can be liquid, or so dense that the pressure there will exceed all conceivable limits.

When it comes to, first of all, we mean intelligent life. Who said that all beings in the universe, endowed with intelligence, must necessarily be like us?

Our science under the word life understands only the protein-nucleic form, the main "highlight" in which is the cell. If this cell does not exist, then there is no life. But it is another matter if by life we ​​understand something else. For example, Tsiolkovsky spoke about a radiant person. What it is? Reasonable, consisting of some kind of energy formations?

Perhaps someday we will be able to unravel these amazing mysteries of the universe, or perhaps we will never be allowed to do this ...

"She's huge"

The discoverer of the ninth planet of the solar system about a new cosmic body

Photo: R. Hurt / Infrared Processing and Analysis Center / Courtesy of California Institute of Technology / AP

On the discovery of the ninth planet solar system two astronomers from California Institute of Technology in Pasadena became known on January 20. One of them - a native of Russia Konstantin Batygin - told Lente.ru about the search for Planet X, the difficulties with the name of the new celestial body and about unsolved mysteries solar system.

"Lenta.ru": What is the planet you discovered?

: It does not fall into the category of dwarf planets. This celestial body is quite massive. Our model gives a mass of about ten Earth's, this planet is simply gigantic. It is now defined as a celestial object whose gravitational field dominates that part of the solar system.

In general, there is not even a question: is it a planet or not. We know about it because its gravity affects the orbits of distant objects in the Kuiper belt. The very mathematical modeling relies on this planet having enough mass to dominate the solar system gravitationally.

What about its physical properties?

Calculations, unfortunately, give us only the mass and General characteristics. We can only assume that it is similar in chemical composition to Uranus or Neptune. More precisely, we will say something when a device like New Horizons is sent to the planet. Although the flight is far, and it will take a very long time to wait.

Where did Planet X come from?

We believe that it formed in the first three million years of the solar system, that is, about 4.5 billion years ago, from about the same material as Uranus and Neptune. While the solar system was still shrouded in a gas cloud, this planet was gravitationally scattered into a longer orbit.

Were you guided by Chadwick Trujillo and Scott Sheppard's observations of trans-Neptunian object 2012 VP113 in 2004?

We relied on their work. What they found is called the perihelion argument of many orbits in the Kuiper belt. It turns out that this is only part of the story. The reality is an order of magnitude simpler and more fundamental: further orbits in the Kuiper belt look in approximately the same direction. Their physical orbits are almost the same. And it was this fundamental moment that led to the fact that we were able to calculate the orbit of "Planet 9".

Image: NASA / JPL-CALTECH

How fast do you hope to find a planet with the Subaru telescope? Your colleagues, such as Professor Hal Levison, are looking forward to direct observations.

In principle, we get results from one night of observations fairly quickly. The problem is that you need a lot of nights: you need to examine enough most sky. So I think if we integrate, we have to spend two or three years to find the planet that we predicted.

Does this planet have moons?

We think so. My colleagues and I agree that there are no reasons that would prevent this. Can they be seen with a telescope? Probably. But it's difficult...

Have you thought about what to name the new planet?

Mike Brown and I (Mike Brown, co-author of Konstantin Batygin - approx. "Tapes.ru") we believe that it is better to entrust the world community. It's not for the two of us to decide. Again, we have not thought about this yet: we have a theoretical model, but the planet has not been found astronomically.

Could there be other planets in the solar system?

I guess, yes. There is nothing that contradicts such a possibility. But on this moment we do not have any data indicating that, besides the ninth planet, there is something else.

When will observational astronomy put an end to this story?

Good question. By the middle of the 20th century, it seemed that observational astronomy had completed its work in the solar system. It turned out that this was not the case.

In principle, the solar system is huge, the gravitational field of the Sun dominates very far: the dominant ends somewhere after a hundred thousand astronomical units, and we see small objects in the Kuiper belt at a distance of a maximum of eighty astronomical units. There is still a huge area unknown.

Three major telescopes are being built on Earth at once: the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT), the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) and the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT). Will they be useful in such research?

The projects you mentioned are certainly important. However, to search for planets like ours, telescopes like Subaru, whose camera is made to cover most of the sky, are more suitable. The same TMT will be good for characterization and bad for search.

What if the discovery of the ninth planet is not confirmed?

The most dramatic precedent is the discovery of Neptune in 1846 by Urban Le Verrier, who used mathematical models similar to what we have today. But our model is an order of magnitude more detailed and complex: it uses supercomputers.

And Le Verrier's calculations were confirmed in one night of observations.

Do you maintain contacts with Russian colleagues?

I lived in Russia until 1994, after which I moved with my family to Japan and then to the USA. I am mainly a theorist, sometimes I communicate by e-mail with colleagues from Russia and Russians working in the US and other countries.

I don't read Russian media because I don't have enough time. I try to do only science. I can say that in theoretical science Russia remains strong: there are many good scientists. The story of Mikhail Lidov comes to mind, who in the 1950s calculated the effect now called the Lidov-Kozai resonance. People did not understand for a long time how important this effect is. Lidov was decades ahead of mankind, and there are still such scientists in Russia.

Image copyright Reuters Image caption Michael Brown specializes in finding distant objects

Caltech scientists Michael Brown and Konstantin Batygin have provided evidence for the existence of a giant planet in the solar system, located even further from the Sun than Pluto.

The researchers reported that they have not yet been able to see it through a telescope. According to them, the planet was discovered when studying the movement of small celestial bodies in deep space.

The mass of the celestial body is about 10 times the mass of the Earth, but scientists have yet to verify its existence.

Institute astronomers have only a rough idea of ​​where the planet might be in the starry sky, and no doubt their suggestion will launch a campaign to find it.

"There are many telescopes on Earth theoretically capable of finding it. I really hope that now, after our announcement, people around the world will start looking for the ninth planet," said Michael Brown.

Elliptical orbit

According to scientists, the space object is about 20 times farther from the Sun than Neptune, which is 4.5 billion km away.

Unlike the almost circular orbits of other planets in the Solar System, this object is supposed to move in an elliptical orbit, and a complete revolution around the Sun takes from 10 thousand to 20 thousand years.

Scientists have studied the movement of objects consisting mainly of ice in the Kuiper Belt. Pluto is in this belt.

The researchers noticed a certain location of some bodies in the Belt, in particular such large objects as Sedna and 2012 VP113. In their opinion, this can only be explained by the presence of an unknown large space object.

"All the most distant objects move in the same direction on an inexplicable trajectory, and we realized that the only explanation for this is the existence of a large, distant planet that holds them together as they orbit the Sun," Brown said.

Planet X

The idea of ​​the existence of the so-called Planet X, located on the periphery of the solar system, has been discussed in scientific circles for more than 100 years. She is remembered and then forgotten.

The current speculation is of particular interest because of the study's lead author.

Brown specializes in searching for distant objects, and it was his discovery of the dwarf planet Eris in the Kuiper Belt in 2005 that led to Pluto losing planetary status a year later.

Then it was assumed that Eris is slightly larger than Pluto, but now it has become clear that it is slightly smaller than it.

Researchers studying distant objects in the solar system have been speculating for some time on the possibility of a planet the size of Mars or Earth due to the size and shape of the planets in the Kuiper Belt. But until you can see the planet through a telescope, the idea of ​​​​its existence will be perceived with skepticism.

The study by Michael Brown and Konstantin Batygin was published in the Astronomical Journal.

Remember all sorts of conspiracy theories about, but it turns out that another planet still exists. Well, at least with a probability of 99.993.

And here's how it happened.

Astronomers Mike Brown and Konstantin Batygin of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena reported the discovery of an object the size of Neptune, which is 10 times heavier than the Earth, outside the orbit of Pluto. The authors published the results of the search for Planet X in The Astronomical Journal, and Science News briefly talks about them.

The planet revolves around the Sun in an elongated orbit (and in a plane inclined relative to the Earth's orbit) with a period of 15 thousand years. Its chemical composition is similar to those of the gas giants Uranus and Neptune. According to Brown and Batygin, the object was knocked out of the protoplanetary disk near the Sun 4.5 billion years ago.

The nearest distance between the Sun and the detected object is 200 astronomical units (this is seven times the distance between Neptune and the star). The maximum removal of Planet X is estimated at 600-1200 astronomical units, which brings its orbit beyond the Kuiper belt, in which Pluto is located.

The referent of the work of scientists in The Astronomical Journal was the planetary scientist Michael Brown, who, together with colleagues in 2003, discovered the dwarf planet Sedna, which makes a full revolution around the Sun in 11.4 thousand years. The specialist was optimistic about the chances of the discovery of Planet X by Brown and Batygin.

new planet scientists discovered by analyzing data on the gravitational perturbation it exerts on other celestial bodies. As Brown and Batygin note, astronomers will believe in their discovery when they can observe the planet through a telescope. To do this, they reserved time at the Japanese Subaru Observatory in Hawaii.

Confirmation of the existence of a celestial body will take five years. If discovered, the object could become the ninth planet in the solar system. The error probability Brown and Batygin estimate at 0.007 percent. Earlier searches for Planet X in the solar system led scientists to discover Neptune (in 1864) and Pluto (in 1930).

Mike Brown and Konstantin Batygin, Photo by Popular Science

But back in 2012, according to the calculations of an astronomer from Brazil, there is a rather large space object beyond the orbit of Neptune, which can be recognized as the ninth planet.

With such an assumption, an astronomer from the National Observatory of Brazil Rodney da Silva Gomes made. He drew attention to the deviation from the given calculations of the orbits of six Kuiper belt objects, among which the contender for the title of a dwarf planet is Sedna.

According to him, there are several explanations for the unusual behavior of some objects in the belt. The simplest is the existence of a large body, a planet that changes their orbits with its gravity.