Table of Contents
What if Planet 9 was a black hole?
If Planet Nine is indeed out there, it may be on a part of its orbit that takes it so far away from the sun that we can’t observe it with current technology. So now, astronomers have proposed an alternative hypothesis: Maybe Planet Nine isn’t a planet at all but rather a small black hole.
Is Planet 9 actually a black hole?
“It is also possible that Planet Nine is a six-Earth-mass hamburger, I guess.” He added, “The good news is that Planet Nine is really, really, really unlikely to be a black hole but that we can use probes like this to study it once we find it.”
What would happen if a primordial black hole entered the Solar System?
If a PBH found its way into our solar system, that black hole would orbit the sun like a planet would, and it would tug on dwarf planets and asteroids just like the theoretical Planet 9 would. There wouldn’t be any way to tell the effects of a planet’s gravity from that of a primordial black hole of the same mass.
Is ‘Planet Nine’ a black hole?
The researchers proposed that the so-called Planet Nine isn’t a planet at all. Instead, they suggest that the solar system could be home to one of the universe’s earliest black holes: a primordial black hole. Now, Harvard scientists have proposed a way to determine, once and for all, whether Planet Nine actually could be a black hole.
Is there a grapefruit-size black hole hiding out in our Solar System?
(Image credit: NASA) Two physicists think that we should check to see if there’s an ancient, grapefruit-size black hole hiding out in our solar system. And that tiny, heavy object might in fact take the place of a theoretical planet that some researchers think might be tugging on other objects in our solar system, the so-called Planet 9.
Is there a small black hole orbiting the Sun?
But cosmological observations have ruled out most models of primordial black hole formation, with a few narrow exceptions — like planet-size black holes. So, if scientists can confirm that a small black hole is orbiting the sun, it could provide an intriguing look at one of the greatest mysteries of modern cosmology.