The Fascinating Hunt for a Mysterious Ninth Planet [Ep. 488]

Into the Impossible With Brian Keating

Brian Keating

Science, Physics, Natural Sciences

4.7 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 20 April 2025

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As a listener of Dr. Brian Keating, you get a special 20% off discount. 👉 Head over to The Economist's website at www.economist.com/Keating to get started. What really happened during the controversy over the discovery of Haumea? Why was Pluto actually demoted? And is there a hidden Planet Nine lurking in the outer solar system? I’m joined today by none other than the Pluto Killer himself, Mike Brown. Mike is an astronomer and professor of planetary astronomy at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). His groundbreaking discoveries of dwarf planets like Eris, Haumea, and Makemake shook up the astronomy world and led to the controversial redefinition of what constitutes a planet. In this gripping episode of Into the Impossible, Mike opens up about the ethical challenges he faced in his career, including the Haumea data theft that caused a massive controversy, the truth behind the demotion of Pluto, and the ongoing search for Planet Nine. — Key Takeaways: 00:00 Intro 01:26 How Mike killed Pluto 03:50 Defining planets 08:48 Being an astronomer 13:31 Controversy over the discovery of Haumea 29:56 The search for Planet Nine 39:14 Balancing high and low-risk research 43:43 Did Neil deGrasse Tyson kill Pluto? 44:34 Planet Nine’s effects on the solar system’s evolution 46:47 The relevance of exoplanets 52:52 Outro — Additional resources: ➡️ Learn more about Mike Brown: 💻 Website: https://mikebrown.caltech.edu/ 📚 How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming: https://a.co/d/9jQp3nt ➡️ Follow me on your fav platforms: ✖️ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrBrianKeating 🔔 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/DrBrianKeating?sub_confirmation=1 📝 Join my mailing list: https://briankeating.com/list ✍️ Check out my blog: https://briankeating.com/cosmic-musings/ 🎙️ Follow my podcast: https://briankeating.com/podcast — Into the Impossible with Brian Keating is a podcast dedicated to all those who want to explore the universe within and beyond the known. Make sure to follow/subscribe so you never miss an episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to a deadly episode of The Into the Impossible podcast featuring the Pluto killer himself,
0:07.7	Professor Mike Brown. This is the astronomer who forever changed our solar system's map,
0:13.1	tearing down childhood certainties, and rebuilding our cosmic understanding from scratch.
0:18.1	From teaching geology without ever taking a geology course to hunting a
0:22.4	mysterious ninth planet lurking in the outer dark regions of our solar system, Mike's career
0:29.0	reads like a scientific thriller. Today we're asking some uncomfortable questions for this murder
0:34.9	suspect. Was it really necessary to kill Pluto? Is there still a massive
0:39.6	hidden planet some 5,000 times bigger than Pluto haunting the outer solar system? And what happens
0:47.1	when scientific discovery collides with public sentiment? Mike spent decades searching for Planet 9 after demoting Pluto, and the irony
0:56.5	isn't lost on him. His detective work with the Subaru telescope has narrowed down the search
1:01.1	to the constellation Taurus, potentially uncovering the fifth largest planet in our solar system.
1:07.5	Buckle up for astronomical controversy, scientific detective work, and the raw human
1:12.6	journey behind reshaping our understanding of the cosmos. These are some of the deepest mysteries in the
1:18.1	cosmos, and this is the Into the Impossible podcast. Mike Brown, thank you for making the trip all the way
1:22.9	down from Pasadena. Great to be here. It's so nice to have you here. You're giving a talk today about entitled Planet 9 from outer space.
1:30.6	It is obviously reminiscent of a famous movie that probably 99% of my audience is too young to know.
1:36.1	But the abstract, which is fascinating, astronomers have been predicting and searching for
1:40.7	almost 180 years.
1:42.1	That's how it begins.
1:43.5	It's time to give up.
1:44.5	Time to give up the search 180 years
1:46.7	a long time to come up with nothing, right?
	...

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