Greetings, fellow astrophiles!
And apologies for the short-ish notice. This is not a showing of the movie “Plan 9,” but risks being just as cheesy. CNYO makes its yearly (if not more often) return to LPL this Thursday with a lecture that actually overlaps nicely with a lecture topic from a few years back that was presented at a CNY Skeptics meetings – We step out from our discussion of Ceres and Pluto into a discussion of Pluto and the theorized Planet IX (not to be confused with Planet X). As always, we check on the state of the binocular loaner program as well, with hopes that all have been reserved and none are available.
Link details can be found at calendar.lpl.org
Caption: The 6 most distant objects known in the Solar System, then the predicted orbit of the unknown 7th. Image courtesy of Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC)
Planet 9(,) From Outer Space Event Type: Adult Programs
Date: 4/19/2018
Start Time: 7:00 PM
End Time: 8:30 PM
Description: History, Politics and Physics Out Beyond Neptune
google map directions to LPL. Pluto had a remarkably good and lucky run as the 9th planet in our Solar System. Its demotion to dwarf planet status in late 2006 was due to a number of factors, driven largely by the discovery that Pluto is not alone either in size or in location out beyond Neptune’s orbit. Modern telescopes have discovered numerous dwarf planets out in the Kuiper Belt – a region of the Solar System for which Pluto is now the most famous member. By determining the orbits of these distant objects, astrophysicists have even made the prediction that something much larger in size must be lurking in the distance – large enough to qualify as a true planet if and when it is officially observed.
Dr. Damian Allis is a NASA Solar System Ambassador, director of CNY Observers and writes the monthly “Upstate New York Stargazing” column for syracuse.com and newyorkupstate.com.
Location: Carman Community Room
Presenter: Cindy Hibbert