Latest news with #VeraC.RubinObservatory
Perth Now
5 days ago
- Science
- Perth Now
Planet Nine may exist
Planet Nine may exist Scientists at Rice University in Houston, Texas, have shared new research that supports the idea of the large distant planet that may lurk at the edge of the solar system. Planet Nine – which is thought to be five to ten times the mass of Earth - is a theoretical planet first suggested in 2016 by astronomers at the California Institute of Technology. According to their study of complex simulations, there is up to a 40 per cent chance of its existence. If Planet Nine is real, it could help explain the unusual orbits of objects in the Kuiper Belt, a region beyond Neptune. The team hopes the planet – which would orbit the sun on a distant path far beyond Pluto - can be detected by the largest camera built inside the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, located on the El Penon peak of Cerro Pachon mountain in Chile. Doctor Andre Izidoro, the study's lead author, is quoted by MailOnline: 'When giant planets scatter each other through gravitational interactions, some are flung far away from their star. 'If the timing and surrounding environment are just right, those planets don't get ejected, but rather they get trapped in extremely wide orbits. 'Our simulations show that if the early solar system underwent two specific instability phases - the growth of Uranus and Neptune and the later scattering among gas giants, there is up to a 40 per cent chance that a Planet Nine-like object could have been trapped during that time.'
Daily Mail
7 days ago
- General
- Daily Mail
Planet Nine really DOES exist, scientists say - as they reveal exactly how we could find the secret world
It's a question that has baffled scientists around the world for years. Is there really a ninth planet hiding in our solar system? And if so, how do we find it? Now, researchers from Rice University claim to have fresh evidence of Planet Nine - as well as a method to find it. Based on complex simulations, the team says there's around a 40 per cent chance that a Planet Nine-like object is hiding in our solar system. And if it does exist, it could be discovered using the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, they say. Located on a mountaintop in Chile, this observatory features the largest camera ever built - and is set to send back its first images within weeks. 'With its unparalleled ability to survey the sky in depth and detail, the observatory is expected to significantly advance the search for distant solar system objects, increasing the likelihood of either detecting Planet Nine or providing the evidence needed to rule out its existence,' the researchers said in a statement. Planet Nine is a hypothetical planet, first theorised by astronomers from California Institute of Technology (Caltech) back in 2016. Said to have a mass about five to 10 times that of Earth, this hypothetical, Neptune-sized planet would circle our sun on a highly elongated path, far beyond Pluto. If it does exist, Planet Nine could help to explain the unique orbits of some smaller objects in the Kupier Belt - a region of icy debris that extends far beyond the orbit of Neptune. In their new study, the team set out to understand whether or not Planet Nine could really exist. Using complex simulations, the team showed that wide-orbit planets like Planet Nine are not anomalies. Instead, they're natural by-products of a chaotic early phase in planetary system development, according to the team. 'Essentially, we're watching pinballs in a cosmic arcade,' said André Izidoro, lead author of the study. 'When giant planets scatter each other through gravitational interactions, some are flung far away from their star. 'If the timing and surrounding environment are just right, those planets don't get ejected, but rather they get trapped in extremely wide orbits.' The simulations showed that planets are pushed into these wide orbits by internal instabilities, before being stabilised by the gravitational influence of nearby stars. 'When these gravitational kicks happen at just the right moment, a planet's orbit becomes decoupled from the inner planetary system,' explained Nathan Kaib, co-author of the study. 'This creates a wide-orbit planet—one that's essentially frozen in place after the cluster disperses.' As for what this means for Planet Nine, the researchers say there's now a 40 per cent change that the world exists. 'Our simulations show that if the early solar system underwent two specific instability phases—the growth of Uranus and Neptune and the later scattering among gas giants—there is up to a 40% chance that a Planet Nine-like object could have been trapped during that time,' Dr Izidoro said. The team now hopes to use the Vera C. Rubin Observatory to prove the existence of Planet Nine once and for all. 'As we refine our understanding of where to look and what to look for, we're not just increasing the odds of finding Planet Nine,' Dr Izidoro added. 'We're opening a new window into the architecture and evolution of planetary systems throughout the galaxy.' PLANET NINE: ORBITS OF OBJECTS BEYOND NEPTUNE SUGGEST 'SOMETHING LARGE' IS THERE Astronomers believe that the orbits of a number of bodies in the distant reaches of the solar system have been disrupted by the pull of an as yet unidentified planet. First proposed by a group at CalTech in the US, this alien world was theorised to explain the distorted paths seen in distant icy bodies. In order to fit in with the data they have, this alien world - popularly called Planet Nine - would need to be roughly four times the size of Earth and ten times the mass. Researchers say a body of this size and mass would explain the clustered paths of a number of icy minor planets beyond Neptune. Its huge orbit would mean it takes between 10,000 and 20,000 years to make a single pass around the sun. The theoretical Planet Nine is based on the gravitational pull it exerts on these bodies, with astronomers confident it will be found in the coming years.
Economic Times
24-05-2025
- Science
- Economic Times
2017 OF201: All about the new planet found beyond Pluto
Live Events (You can now subscribe to our (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel Scientists have identified a new minor planet beyond Pluto , enhancing our knowledge of the solar system 's outer boundaries. The celestial body, designated as 2017 OF201 , ranks among the largest distant objects ever detected, providing fresh insights into the Kuiper Belt and the remote regions of our planetary International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center officially recognised 2017 OF201 after its detection in archived telescope data. The object's remarkable characteristics include its substantial size and distinctive orbital path. Its estimated diameter ranges from 470 to 820 kilometres (approximately 290 to 510 miles), placing it amongst known dwarf planets and substantial asteroids like highly eccentric orbit varies between 45 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun - approximately 45 times Earth's distance from the Sun - to a remarkable 838 AU at its apex. For context, Neptune orbits at about 30 AU. This extensive elliptical trajectory classifies 2017 OF201 as an extreme trans-Neptunian object (ETNO), belonging to a category of bodies residing in the solar system's furthest Kuiper Belt, home to Pluto and other frozen bodies, remains an enigmatic region containing remnants from the solar system's formation over 4.5 billion years ago. The discovery of 2017 OF201 assists astronomers in understanding the origin, evolution, and formation of these objects, providing data about the solar system's early discovery of 2017 OF201 contributes to ongoing investigations regarding a potential ninth planet beyond Neptune. The theoretical "Planet Nine" would exert gravitational influence over several ETNOs' orbits. While 2017 OF201's trajectory doesn't precisely align with Planet Nine predictions, each newly discovered outer solar system object provides crucial data for refining astronomical models and the Planet Nine theory, studying distant objects like 2017 OF201 enhances understanding of the solar system's outer structure and mechanics. These objects serve as preserved evidence of planetary movements, impacts, and other historical facilities like the Vera C. Rubin Observatory will accelerate the identification of distant solar system objects, improving our understanding of these remote areas. Current research continues to illuminate the solar system's boundaries and the principles governing our cosmic 2017 OF201 represents a significant discovery among trans-Neptunian objects. It addresses current knowledge gaps while extending our understanding of the solar system's reach, establishing foundations for future astronomical research.
Time of India
24-05-2025
- Science
- Time of India
2017 OF201: All about the new planet found beyond Pluto
Scientists have identified a new minor planet beyond Pluto , enhancing our knowledge of the solar system 's outer boundaries. The celestial body, designated as 2017 OF201 , ranks among the largest distant objects ever detected, providing fresh insights into the Kuiper Belt and the remote regions of our planetary system. The International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center officially recognised 2017 OF201 after its detection in archived telescope data. The object's remarkable characteristics include its substantial size and distinctive orbital path. Its estimated diameter ranges from 470 to 820 kilometres (approximately 290 to 510 miles), placing it amongst known dwarf planets and substantial asteroids like Ceres. Its highly eccentric orbit varies between 45 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun - approximately 45 times Earth's distance from the Sun - to a remarkable 838 AU at its apex. For context, Neptune orbits at about 30 AU. This extensive elliptical trajectory classifies 2017 OF201 as an extreme trans-Neptunian object (ETNO), belonging to a category of bodies residing in the solar system's furthest regions. The Kuiper Belt, home to Pluto and other frozen bodies, remains an enigmatic region containing remnants from the solar system's formation over 4.5 billion years ago. The discovery of 2017 OF201 assists astronomers in understanding the origin, evolution, and formation of these objects, providing data about the solar system's early conditions. The discovery of 2017 OF201 contributes to ongoing investigations regarding a potential ninth planet beyond Neptune. The theoretical "Planet Nine" would exert gravitational influence over several ETNOs' orbits. While 2017 OF201's trajectory doesn't precisely align with Planet Nine predictions, each newly discovered outer solar system object provides crucial data for refining astronomical models and theories. Live Events Beyond the Planet Nine theory, studying distant objects like 2017 OF201 enhances understanding of the solar system's outer structure and mechanics. These objects serve as preserved evidence of planetary movements, impacts, and other historical events. Future facilities like the Vera C. Rubin Observatory will accelerate the identification of distant solar system objects, improving our understanding of these remote areas. Current research continues to illuminate the solar system's boundaries and the principles governing our cosmic vicinity. Overall, 2017 OF201 represents a significant discovery among trans-Neptunian objects. It addresses current knowledge gaps while extending our understanding of the solar system's reach, establishing foundations for future astronomical research.
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Physicists Think They've Finally Seen Evidence of String Theory
Last month, the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) collective reported that dark energy is evolving—specifically weakening—and it could help provide the first observational evidence of string theory. While a new preprint reports that cosmological models using the string theory framework account for this weakening of dark matter, some physicists aren't convinced that DESI's data alone definitively speaks about the true nature of dark energy. Luckily, future instruments such as the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory will hopefully either confirm these string theory findings or set physicists down a different path toward finding that ever-elusive 'theory of everything.' The centuries-long Copernican journey of slowly displacing humans from the center of everything has provided our species with an unprecedented understanding of our planet, Solar System, and the known universe. But with every cosmological answer comes an all-you-can-eat buffet of new questions, none of which are quite as enticing as the mystery of dark energy. Ever since the first observational evidence in 1998, when scientists discerned that the universe's expansion was actually accelerating, dark energy has figured prominently in most leading theories attempting to explain the workings of the universe. String theory—the theoretical roots of which date back to the late 1960s—is one of those explanations, and the framework's fortunes have risen and fallen with the passing decades. Many scientists have declared the theory all but dead (or, at the very least, on life support), but new data from the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), which was designed to capture spectroscopic surveys of distant galaxies, has provided some encouraging evidence that string theorists may actually be onto something. At least, that's the idea behind a new preprint paper, published on the server arXiv. Scientists from Virginia Tech, State University of New York (SUNY) and the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa argue that the bombshell observations from DESI—primarily, that the dark energy is weakening over time—could provide some of the first direct observational evidence of string theory. 'Given our proposal for the origin of dark energy from the geometry of the dual spacetime, the latest results from DESI might point to a fundamentally new understanding of quantum spacetime in the context of quantum gravity,' the authors wrote in the non-peer-reviewed paper. Unlike the Standard Model, which considers particles to be point-like, string theory—as its name suggests—conceptualizes these particles as one-dimensional vibrating strings, the vibrations of which dictate the behaviors and qualities of the particles. After the announcement of DESI's discovery last month that the impact of dark energy may be weakening over time, string theorists perked up, as this new piece of data fits well within many existing string theory predictions. Cumrun Vafa, a string theory physicist at Harvard University, told Quanta Magazine last month that 'the theory kind of demands that [dark energy] change.' According to Live Science, this new study developed a string theory model that yielded a dark energy density that closely mimicked the data found by DESI. They also discerned that dark energy is impacted by two completely different types of lengths: the ultra-small Planck scale and the absolute size of the universe. This connection hints that dark energy is somehow related to the quantum nature of spacetime itself. 'This hints at a deeper connection between quantum gravity and the dynamical properties of nature that had been supposed to be constant,' SUNY's Michael Kavic told Live Science. 'It may turn out that a fundamental misapprehension we carry with us is that the basic defining properties of our universe are static when in fact they are not.' This doesn't suddenly mean that we've found the ever-elusive 'theory of everything'—a concept that unifies all physics both classical and quantum. For one, independent observations would need to confirm the assertions in this paper (though, the authors believed they've identified ways to possibly accomplish that feat). However, others argue that even the DESI data isn't conclusive on the true nature of dark energy, and that we need superior instruments to really understand what's going on. Luckily, we're getting just that. NASA is preparing to launch the Nancy Grace Roman space telescope in 2027, and the National Science Foundation is set to achieve 'first light' with the Vera C. Rubin Observatory later this year. DESI's impressive dataset has set physics down a new path of discovery, but these new instruments will hopefully provide long sought-after cosmological answers—and also a few new questions we never even thought to ask. You Might Also Like The Do's and Don'ts of Using Painter's Tape The Best Portable BBQ Grills for Cooking Anywhere Can a Smart Watch Prolong Your Life?
