Lezing "Planet Nine from Outer Space: A Status Update" op woensdag 1 december a.s.
Prof. dr. Konstantin Batygin zal op woensdag 1 december voor WTS uitsluitend via Skype een lezing in de Engelse taal geven met als titel "Planet Nine from Outer Space: A Status Update". Naast de WTS'ers worden alle Metius leden uitgenodigd de lezing ook te volgen via de Skypegroep "Metius Lezingen".
Hier is de link naar de lezing in pdf formaat
Over the course of the past two decades, observational surveys have unveiled the intricate orbital structure of the Kuiper Belt, a field of icy bodies orbiting the Sun beyond Neptune. In addition to a host of readily-predictable orbital behavior, the emerging census of trans-Neptunian objects appears to display dynamical phenomena that cannot be explained by interactions with the known eight planets of our Solar System alone. Specifically, the observed physical clustering of orbits with semi-major axes in excess of ∼ 250 AU, the detachment of perihelia of select Kuiper belt objects from Neptune, as well as the dynamical origin of highly inclined/retrograde long-period orbits remain elusive within the context of the classical view of the Solar System. This newly outlined dynamical architecture of the distant solar system points to the existence of a planet with a mass of 5 - 9 earth masses, on a moderately inclined orbit with semi-major axis of 400−800 AU and eccentricity of 0.4−0.6. In this talk, I will review the observational motivation, dynamical constraints, and prospects for detection of this proposed object known as Planet Nine.
The speaker:
Konstantin Batygin received his bachelor's degree in Physics from University of California, Santa Cruz in 2008, before pursuing graduate studies at California Institute of Technology. Prior to joining the faculty at Caltech, Batygin was a postdoctoral scholar at Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur in Nice, France, and Harvard University. When not doing science, he moonlights as the singer and guitar player of the rock band The Seventh Season (we are about 4 shows away from becoming the next Metallica.