mini-post
You probably know Pluto isn't considered a planet anymore. In the 90s objects of similar size were discovered in a region outside the orbit of Neptune known as the Kuiper Belt. Several of their features set them apart from the first eight planets so it made sense to call them by a different name - dwarf planets. One of the major figures in these discoveries is an astronomer who specializes in the solar system and how it came to be. Mike Brown killed Pluto. Neil deGrasse Tyson only popularized Pluto's demotion. Mike took a lot of flak including hate mail from children. His young daughter told him he'd have to go and discover the ninth planet to make up for it.
Konstantin Batygin joined Mike in the discovery of an unusual clustering of the orbits of some extreme trans-Neptunian objects. These objects are well beyond the Kuiper Belt - generally over one hundred times farther from the Sun than we are.1 They hypothesized a very large ETNO five to ten times as massive as the Earth in a very elongated orbit 200 to 400 times as far from the Sun as we are was causing the clustering.
The hunt for Planet Nine has been a huge challenge as it would be extremely dim. There are ideas where it may be, but so far nothing. The search continues and other discoveries are being made.
The real reason for the post is to show scientists have lives. Konstantin happens to play guitar in a small rock group. Eduardo Marturet and composed a piece of music for symphony orchestra and electric guitar in honor of Einstein's birthday. So why not have a physicist as guest soloist? This past Sunday Konstantin joined the Miami Symphony Orchestra by video link for the performance. Right out of Buckaroo Banzai.
If the piece isn't to your taste you can scroll around - say to about the five minute mark - and watch Konstantin play with his slate blackboard in the background (physicists and mathematicians - even the young ones - still use chalk)
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1 A quick way to think of the size of the solar system is to consider the distance of planets from the Sun in terms of astronomical units. One AU is the average distance of the Earth from the Sun. So moving out from Earth and rounding:
Earth 1.0
Mars 1.5
Jupiter 5
Saturn 10
Uranus 20
Neptune 30
Pluto 30 - 50
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