Listen up, kids. You’re about to have to learn (another) whole new mnemonic for the solar system.
‘My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas’ was blown apart by the news that Pluto was not in fact a planet, and was instead cruelly relegated by the International Astronomical Union to a mere dwarf-planet back in 2006.
Childhoods destroyed, we wept for our old friend, Pluto. What the hell was our mother going to serve us now? Nuts? Erm, some of us have allergies Mom. And to think we called her ‘educated’.
But we dusted ourselves off. We picked ourselves back up. And instead, with a tear of nostalgia in our eye we taught our nieces and nephews to ‘Make Venus Eat My Jello, Serena’s Up Next’ (or, something).
And NOW, as we learn that there may be a new planet which has been spotted lurking within our solar system, everything has been turned upside down once more.
Greg Laughlin of the University of California, Santa Cruz, told the National Geographic, “If there’s going to be another planet in the solar system, I think this is it”.
That’s right. A huge planet, larger than Earth, may be sitting on the edge of our solar system, disturbing dwarf planets and other objects. And if it is identified as such that would bring us back up to nine planets in the solar system once again. There’s just one problem. It hasn’t actually been seen yet.
“A planet 10 times as massive as Earth, called Planet Nine in the diagram (and informally “George,” “Jehoshaphat,” and “Planet of the Apes” by scientists) ” (California Institute of Technology).
Apparently, astronomers and scientists have been cynical about there being another planet for years. But increasingly as of late, they’re beginning to believe that the Kuiper Belt can be better understood if the solar system possesses a ninth planet.
Mike Brown, a professor of Planetary Astronomy at Richard and Barbara Rosenberg – perhaps better known as the guy who downgraded our favourite dwarf-planet and author of the book, How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming – said “It went from trying very hard to be skeptical” to “suddenly thinking, ‘Oh, this actually might even be true.’”
Konstantin Batygin, Assistant Professor of Planetary Science said: “The object itself likely is more massive than the Earth, probably a little bit less massive than Neptune.”
Brown considers this potential discovery a consolation prize for those of us still maligning our stolen ninth planet. “All those people who are mad that Pluto is no longer a planet can be thrilled to know that there’s a real planet out there still to be found.”
He hopes that many people will be inspired to use their telescopes to start a worldwide search to find it.
Which is great news. And we’re all very excited. But if they could just give us the name – or even the first letter – of this new planet so we could get back to finding a new way to remember them we’d be very appreciative.
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