Within day of the launching of a task for voluntary to name nominee for the 9th planet , four possible action have already been found . Even if none of these twist out to be the hypothetical planet , the hunting has proven exceptionally scientifically valuable and there is still more searching to be done .
Professor Brian Coxlaunchedthe Australian National University ’s Planet Nine search on March 28 , give anyone with access to the net the luck to pick through images taken by the SkyMapper telescope in search of something moving easy enough to be at the outer edges of the Solar System . It follow on from asimilar projectstarted a month sooner to cover northerly Hemisphere sky .
The answer was swift and impressive . Within days 60,000 mass had classified more than 4,000,000 objects , and lead researcherDr Brad Tuckeris surefooted the work is safe . “ We ’ve detected minor planets Chiron and Comacina , which demonstrates the attack we ’re taking could chance Planet 9 if it ’s there , ” Tucker said in astatement . The team also rediscover Pluto , although that still does n’t make it a planet .
The images used had been pose unstudied for up to four twelvemonth , and professional uranologist would have take age to make out it . Tucker single out a voluntary name Tony Roberts , who classified 12,000 observations , for congratulations .
The vast absolute majority of the objects detected were either asteroids already conversant to uranologist , or could be ruled out as possible Planet Nines for other reason . Some were space debris . Nevertheless , plenty of scientific amber was poke up . “ We think we ’ve find at least one PhD ’s deserving out of two and a half day ’s work . We plant several ground - orbit ford asteroid , ” Tucker told IFLScience , which he mention laconically , “ could be important for other reasons . ”
So far 90 percent of the southern skies have been examined to a brightness of 19th magnitude . That means that if Planet Nine be and is the sizing of Neptune or with child , and is within350 Astronomical Unitsof the Sun , it should have been detected . That does n’t stand for the task is over . SkyMapper is sensitive enough that detections have been made down to a magnitude of 21.7 , and Tucker hop if masses keep manoeuver over toPlanet-9 on Zooinversethey can finally find fault up anything bright than twenty-second magnitude in the southern skies – offer the search to a much greater distance .
Tucker narrate IFLScience , Skymapper would be used to attempt to “ recapture ” the four objects of interest , after which a slightly great telescope may be used to capture their spectrum . If any of these look like gas giants , metre will be sought on one of the human race ’s giant telescopes .
