The mysterious Planet Nine may have up to 20 moons that could be superheated by the hypothetical planet's gravitational pull, making them easy to spot.
The elusive "Planet Nine," which may or may not lurk in the outer reaches of the solar system, could be surrounded by a small swarm of potential moons, a new study reveals. What's more, these moons could be the key to finding the missing planet.
Planet Nine, if it exists, lurks beyond the orbit of Neptune in an icy region known as the Kuiper Belt.
Researchers think the trajectory of these ETNOs can be best explained by the gravitational force of an undiscovered mass. Based on these orbits, Planet Nine is likely between five and 10 times larger than Earth and orbits the sun from around 250 times farther away than our planet does. There have even been suggestions that the elusive object could be a mini black hole.
So far, scientists searching in the area haven't found any light signatures from Planet Nine. But that's not surprising; the planet is too far away to be properly illuminated by the sun, so the only way to spot it would be if it eclipsed a distant light source, such as a galaxy or star within the Milky Way.
But how does this help scientists find it? After all, the tiny moons would be even harder to spot than the planet itself.
(Image credit: Shutterstock)
The answer is a weird gravitational effect known as tidal heating, which is when the gravitational energy exerted by one body dissipates as heat in either, or both, the surface ocean or interior of a planet or satellite.
If any of Planet Nine satellites do get this hot, then they are likely to give off a faint radio signal that could be detected by telescopes that have been fine-tuned to search for them, Chan wrote in the paper.
"This provides a new indirect way for examining the Planet Nine hypothesis and revealing the basic properties of Planet Nine," he added.
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