The Andersen Library Blog

The final lecture in the Fall 2016 Whitewater Observatory Lecture Series, “Where — Oh, Where — is Planet Nine? — Finding a very small needle in a very big haystack” will be delivered at 8pm on Fri., Dec. 2, by Dr. Paul Rybski, UW-Whitewater Dept. of Physics, in Upham Hall Room 140. (Originally announced for November 18th, this lecture had to be rescheduled for December 2nd). A public viewing session at Whitewater Observatory will follow the lecture at 9:15pm, weather permitting.

Andersen Library may be able to help you learn more, with books such as How I killed Pluto and why it had it coming (3rd-floor Main Collection, QB701 .B77 2010; preview some text at Google Books) and articles such as “The hunt for planet nine” (Science World, vol.72:no.12, p.12).

If you’d like assistance with finding additional resources, please ask a librarian (choose chat or email, phone 262-472-1032, or visit the Reference Desk).

LECTURE ABSTRACT
Before the invention of the telescope, only five planets in our solar system could be observed by inquisitive humans on Earth: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. At that time, Earth was not recognized as a planet though today we call it the sixth. Even after the “invention” of the telescope in 1608 by Hans Lippershay and its first application to astronomical objects by Galileo Galilei in 1609, it was not until 1781 that the the seventh planet Uranus was discovered accidentally by William Herschel during his search for double stars.

The eighth planet Neptune was the first planet discovered deliberately through the application of Newton’s theory of gravity, a full 65 years after Uranus’ discovery by Herschel. And what had been our ninth planet Pluto, discovered in 1930 well away from where it was predicted to be during a deliberate search for a ninth planet, was demoted to the status of a “dwarf planet” in 2006 by a controversial vote of the International Astronomical Union.

Since the 1990’s, many dwarf planets have been discovered outside of the orbit of Pluto. Collectively known as Kuiperoids because of their orbital location, recent studies of these special objects suggest there really is a ninth “planet” well outside their orbits and bigger than Earth that is controlling their orbits’ sizes and orientations. Such a planet might also provide an explanation for why the plane of the Sun’s equator is inclined to the average orientation of the orbits of the known planets.

[This] lecture will review the discovery since Galileo in 1609 of objects orbitting the Sun, will give a rational classification of these many objects and will review the current evidence for the existence of a larger-than-Earth ninth planet in the outer Solar System.

If you’d like assistance with finding additional resources, please ask a librarian (choose chat or email, phone 262-472-1032, or visit the Reference Desk).

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