Planet X Discovery

 

Some of you may know about the elusive Planet X or Planet 9. Scientists have been looking for this Planet X for years now, and this discovery may lead to a new path to Planet X. Planet X is a planet that NASA has said may exist, it is 10 times the mass of the earth. While looking for this planet scientists have found many small objects but this one is extreme.

 

2015 TG387,  a.k.a. The Goblin, is a dwarf planet approximately 186.4 miles across, about 2.5 the distance to the sun of Pluto, which is affected by Planet X. The Goblin was discovered in October 2015, but to confirm its existence it took scientists three years. For Goblin to go around the sun one time it takes about 40,000 Earth years.

For Planet X, there are five main things that prove the existence of this massive planet. Six objects in the Kuiper Belt have the same exact elliptical orbit that points in the same direction. The orbit of these objects all have the same 30 degree downward orbit. “Computer simulations show there are more objects tilted with respect to the Solar Plane” (Fox News). Planet nine may be responsible for the tilt of the planets in our Solar System. Some Kuiper Belt objects orbit in the opposite direction from everything else in the Solar System. In October 2017 NASA announced that Planet X may be twenty times further from the sun than Neptune is, they even said, “It is now harder to imagine our solar system without a Planet X than with one” (Fox News). It is not clear how much Planet X affects The Goblin’s orbit. The effect Planet X has on The Goblin is the same exact affect that other planets have, which just leads to more proof of Planet X.

 

by Lyle Goldader ’24

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