{"id":2731,"date":"2017-04-28T16:07:06","date_gmt":"2017-04-28T15:07:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qpol.qub.ac.uk\/?p=2731"},"modified":"2017-04-28T16:07:06","modified_gmt":"2017-04-28T15:07:06","slug":"planet-nine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/planet-nine\/","title":{"rendered":"There might not be a \u2018Planet Nine\u2019 after all"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Ever since <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/a-stolen-exoplanet-that-will-kill-us-all-heres-what-we-do-know-about-planet-nine-60407\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">enthusiasm started growing<\/a> over the possibility that there could be a ninth major planet orbiting the sun beyond Neptune, astronomers have been busy hunting it. One group is investigating <a href=\"http:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/science\/planet-nine-9-found-new-astronomers-four-unknown-objects-citizen-neptune-pluto-a7668411.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">four new moving objects<\/a> found by members of the public to see if they are potential new solar system discoveries. As exciting as this is, researchers are also making discoveries that question the entire prospect of a ninth planet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One such finding is <a href=\"https:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/1704.01952\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">our discovery of a minor planet<\/a> in the outer solar system: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.minorplanetcenter.net\/mpec\/K17\/K17G55.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2013 SY99<\/a>. This small, icy world has an orbit so distant that it takes 20,000 years for one long, looping passage. We found SY99 with the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cfht.hawaii.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope<\/a> as part of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ossos-survey.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Outer Solar System Origins Survey<\/a>. SY99\u2019s great distance means it travels very slowly across the sky. Our measurements of its motion show that its orbit is a very stretched ellipse, with the closest approach to the sun at 50 times that between the Earth and the sun (a distance of 50 \u201castronomical units\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To read more of this article, which originally appeared in The Conversation, <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/our-discovery-of-a-minor-planet-beyond-neptune-shows-there-might-not-be-a-planet-nine-after-all-75656\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">click here.&nbsp;<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><span style=\"font-family: 'Georgia',serif\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/64248265@N02\/16287957286\/in\/photolist-qPj3eL-eayh2F-4sq385-eaDWMo-jQuxFm-oQHX9R-9Z7Uqf-fcY8qV-RANme2-bynaX-pEDQwk-ryDsNt-4sWUNM-5EDEft-ouAU9J-qtWvFU-StCdPK-oQJqTE-89DPFU-rdDKv-T7KoNk-df4UUX-a2i2sd-dW62ys-dt9Q94-e4GG8C-herAFb-o9ewqo-6gQkM9-8TYLT-RXr5M6-RMbewd-dt9RuZ-eayfkz-qJQVJW-84C9w5-b9vnKr-QC69TL-r2drNS-Rk19sL-oncyrp-rdzGN-g1Kawp-SsPQNy-6PsAd-e9Sxtd-6ZffLG-8kRviY-op52ZY-9AVvQY\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">featured&nbsp;image<\/a><\/span><\/em><span style=\"font-family: 'Georgia',serif\"> <em><span style=\"font-family: 'Georgia',serif;color: #333333\">has been used courtesy of a <\/span><\/em><\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc\/2.0\/\"><em><span style=\"font-family: 'Georgia',serif;color: blue\">Creative Commons licence<\/span><\/em><\/a><em><span style=\"font-family: 'Georgia',serif;color: #333333\">.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The discovery of a minor planet orbiting the sun beyond Neptune shows there might not be a \u2018Planet Nine\u2019 after all, according to Dr Michele Banister. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2503,"featured_media":2739,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[279],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science-and-innovation"],"mb":[],"acf":{"authors":{"simple_value_formatted":"","value_formatted":null,"value":null,"field":{"ID":9774,"key":"field_66d0cbf58f930","label":"Authors","name":"authors","aria-label":"","prefix":"acf","type":"relationship","value":null,"menu_order":1,"instructions":"","required":0,"id":"","class":"","conditional_logic":0,"parent":9772,"wrapper":{"width":"","class":"","id":""},"post_type":["authors"],"post_status":["publish"],"taxonomy":"","filters":["search"],"return_format":"id","min":0,"max":10,"allow_in_bindings":0,"elements":["featured_image"],"bidirectional":0,"bidirectional_target":[],"_name":"authors","_valid":1}},"description":{"simple_value_formatted":"","value_formatted":"","value":"","field":{"ID":9776,"key":"field_66d2183027749","label":"Description","name":"description","aria-label":"","prefix":"acf","type":"wysiwyg","value":null,"menu_order":3,"instructions":"","required":0,"id":"","class":"","conditional_logic":0,"parent":9772,"wrapper":{"width":"","class":"","id":""},"default_value":"","allow_in_bindings":0,"tabs":"all","toolbar":"basic","media_upload":0,"delay":1,"_name":"description","_valid":1}}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/76\/2017\/04\/PLanets.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"mfb_rest_fields":["title","jetpack_featured_media_url","jetpack_sharing_enabled","amp_enabled"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2503"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/qpol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}