On January 13, 2017, during their regular Friday afternoon session with the students of Ghana, Mr. Mason presented information about Planet Nine. Some of the topics that were discussed included the theory of Planet Nine, Planet Nine’s location in the solar system, Planet Nine’s distance from the sun and Planet Nine’s orbit. Also discussed was an explanation of exoplanets and the Kuiper Belt.
The theory of Planet Nine is just like it says, a theory. It is believed that Planet Nine is an ice giant, and is about 20 times further from the sun than Neptune. This makes it the most distant planet from the sun, some 50 billion miles, compared to Neptune which clocks in at 2.8 billion miles away. This far off distance would land Planet Nine inside the Kuiper-Belt.
The Kuiper-Belt is disk-shaped and located in the outer solar system beyond Neptune’s orbit. It consists of thousands of small, icy celestial bodies. It is widely accepted to be a location for short-period comets (comets that make one complete orbit of the Sun in less than 200 years).
Planet Nine’s orbit is oval shaped and takes about 15,000 years to orbit the earth. With this orbital pattern and its size, Planet Nine would most definitely qualify to be a planet. Unfortunately, the scientific community does not recognize a planet unless there has been visual confirmation. Since no one has seen Planet Nine, we can only speculate and theorize about this mysterious and potentially magnificent ice giant.
