Colloquium: 2022-01

The Search for Planet X

Scott Sheppard

January 11, 2022 at 2:00 PM (link for livestream – LaRC only)

Abstract

The Kuiper Belt, which has Pluto as the largest member, is a region of comet-like objects just beyond Neptune. This belt of objects has an outer edge, which we are only now able to explore beyond in detail with new modern cameras and large telescopes. Our team is performing the largest and deepest survey ever attempted to search for distant solar system objects. The ongoing search has discovered the most distant object ever observed in our solar system and several of the largest known objects after the major planets. The survey has shown that the most extremely distant objects, which are beyond the Kuiper Belt and influence of the known major planets, are strangely grouped closely together in space. This suggests a yet unobserved planet more massive than the Earth is shepherding these extreme trans-Neptunian objects into similar orbits. I will discuss the most recent discoveries at the fringes of our solar system.

Speaker

Dr. Scott S. Sheppard is an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, DC, who studies the role of small bodies in our solar system. He has personally discovered over 100 moons around Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. He also discovered the first Neptune Trojan, that trails behind Neptune within its orbit, and several dwarf planets beyond Neptune. He has an asteroid and three comets named after him. In 2014, Dr. Sheppard along with colleague Chad Trujillo noticed all the extremely distant known small bodies have similar orbits. From this observation, they predicted a Super-Earth mass planet likely exists in our solar system some ten times further out than Pluto and it is shepherding these extremely distant smaller objects into their similar orbits.

short link: https://go.nasa.gov/3CHx8TE