Prospects for unseen planets beyond Neptune
Renu Malhotra, University of Arizona
4:00pm
105 Space Sciences Bldg.
Several recent studies have appealed to statistical analyses of the orbital distribution of distant Kuiper belt objects to argue for the existence of a roughly Earth-mass planet orbiting at about three times Neptune’s distance and a roughly ten Earth-mass planet orbiting at about twenty times Neptune’s distance. These hypothetical planets have been informally labeled Planet 10 and Planet 9. I will review the arguments and the prospects for the existence of these unseen planets in the distant solar system.