Discovering Planets in the Solar System: The Search for Planet Nine

UW Astronomy professor Juliette Becker will give a special presentation titled: Discovering Planets in the Solar System: The Search for Planet Nine

In this talk, I will discuss the history of discovering planets in the solar system. After a brief historical context (on Uranus, Neptune, and Vulcan), I will discuss the current search for Planet Nine, the hypothetical as-yet-undiscovered ninth planet in our Solar System, thought to be about six times as massive as Earth and orbiting 600 times further away from the Sun than Earth does. I’ll discuss why scientists think it’s there, and what it might mean that no one has found it yet!

Biography: I am a professor in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Wisconsin. My research interests include planet formation – understanding why planets form, and why planetary systems look the way they do. Previous to joining the faculty at Wisconsin, I worked at Caltech with Konstantin Batygin (the person who, along with Mike Brown, first proposed the existence of Planet Nine in 2016).

This meeting will take place in-person at our usual Space Place classroom location. It will also be streamed live to our Youtube channel at https://www.youtube.com/@madisonastronomicalsociety.