Finding Pluto’s Potential Replacement with a Giant New Telescope

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.4 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 10 January 2025

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Pluto was unseated as our solar system’s ninth planet in 2006. Since then astronomers have found signs that a real ninth planet could be hiding at the edges of our solar system. Clara Moskowitz, senior editor for space and physics, explains how the forthcoming Vera Rubin Observatory could give researchers a way to find the real Planet Nine—if it’s out there. Recommended reading: – We May Be on the Brink of Finding the Real Planet Nine – How to Move the World’s Largest Camera from a California Lab to an Andes Mountaintop E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Madison Goldberg and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was hosted by Rachel Feltman with guest Clara Moskowitz, senior editor for space and physics. Our show is edited by Madison Goldberg with fact-checking by Emily Makowski, Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:27.8	slash UK slash AI for people. For Scientific American Science quickly, I'm Rachel Feldman. Unless you're
0:34.4	really on the low end of our listener age bell curve, chances are you grew up learning about our solar systems nine planets.
0:43.1	Of course, unless you've been living under a rock since 2006, you also know that now we only have eight planets.
0:51.8	Sorry, Pluto fans.
0:53.5	But maybe you've also heard rumblings about the mysterious
0:57.1	planet nine. This hypothetical extra planet has been popping in and out of the news for more
1:03.2	than a decade. Thanks to a new observatory set to come online in 2025, the truth about
1:09.2	planet nine could finally be within reach. Here to tell us more
1:13.3	is Clara Moskowitz, senior editor for Space and Physics at Scientific American. Thanks so much for
1:20.6	coming on to chat today. Thank you for having me. So starting with basics, I feel like a lot of people
1:26.0	have heard vaguely of planet nine.
1:28.3	It's a very evocative concept.
1:30.7	But when we talk about planet nine, what are we actually talking about?
1:34.7	So we're talking about this potential planet.
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