Monday, March 10, 2014

No Planet X, but New Stars


As frequently occurs in the realm of science, astronomers have accidentally found thousands of new stars while searching for Planet X. Planet X, sometimes referred to as Nemesis, is a planet believed to be at the periphery of the solar system causing slight deviations in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune. Because scientists postulated Planet X may be a red or brown dwarf, which are too dim to observe with visible wavelength telescopes, the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) was used to try to find the planet. Although data collected between 2010-2011 did not reveal the presence of Nemesis, it did show thousands of new stars.

If you want to learn about the elusive (or more likely nonexistent) Planet X, check out the article here!

1 comment: