• Question: is the rumour about planet x true?

    Asked by Ron weasley to Camilla, Dan, Katie, Mike, Rhys on 18 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Katie Sparks

      Katie Sparks answered on 18 Jun 2015:

      I’m going to assume you’re talking about the potential 10th planet of the solar system.
      At the moment – it would be planet 9 – Pluto was downgraded to a large asteriod and there are a lot of large asteriods in the big astriod field out beyond Neptune. So, we’d have to find number 9 before we can find a number 10. Now that we have space telescopes, it’s easier to see that kind of thing, but I’m not sure if that is something that is being searched for.
      The hard part about planet x (and 9) is: at what point do you consider a large asteriod a planet?
      Pluto was downgraded, what would the critera be to upgrade something?

    • Photo: Camilla Weiss

      Camilla Weiss answered on 18 Jun 2015:

      Planet X is a good example of how scientists often discover things in space not by looking at them directly but by observing how they are affecting objects near by. Just because we can’t see something doesn’t mean it isn’t there. It also goes to show just how big space is – our solar system is indescribably tiny compared to rest of the universe and yet there’s still so much we haven’t discovered about it!

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