Terry Phan & Tomo Goto: Planet nine - finally detected?

"Extreme trans-Neptunian Objects" - or chunks of rock that orbit the sun on average 250 times further away from the sun than Earth does - are moving in strange ways. They seem to be clustered somewhat, and Brown / Batygin suggested in 2016 that an explanation could be a hidden ninth planet in our solar system, around 5-10 earth masses. Terry Long Phan, astronomy graduate student at National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan, has led a study to look for this extremely far away planet in a new way: Using the infrared spectrum. Terry compared 1983 data from the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) with 2006 data from Japan’s AKARI mission - and found a single object that has potential. Barring Pluto (found 1930 and disqualified in 2006) the last time anyone found a new planet in our solar system was when Urbain Le Verrier and Johann Gottfried Galle found Neptune in 1846. So if Terry has found a proper planet - this could be a big moment. But is it true? In September Phan and Goto will make a third observation to verify the finding, and until then, this podcast gives you the details on how they looked for planet nine, what they found, and what they will look for in September. You can read more about Terry Phan's paper here, https://www.astronomy.com/science/have-astronomers-found-planet-nine/or see the original paper here: https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.17288 Wunderdog is sponsored by my patrons at patreon.com/runde, and the music is from Trop1ce aka Charky.