You’ve probably heard of the solar system before. According to the Larousse encyclopedia, the solar system is “the whole of the Sun and the stars (in particular the planets) which revolve around it”. From this definition, one might rightly ask how many planets are in the solar system. Especially since some say eight while others say there are nine. So what is the correct answer?
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Eight or nine planets?
You should know that between 1930 and 2006, scientists counted the existence of nine planets. Why 1930? Because that’s the year Clyde Tombaugh, an American astronomer, discovered Pluto. The nine planets listed at the time are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Mercury being the closest to the Sun and Pluto, the farthest.
However, in 2006, American astronomer Michael Brown demonstrated that Pluto did not deserve its place on the list. The reason given by this researcher, nicknamed “Pluto Killer” is that Pluto is not only too small but also not unique enough. In other words, she looked like many objects in the region of Neptune.
The ninth planet could exist, but it’s not Pluto
Pluto was then classified among the dwarf planets and the number of planets has been reduced to eight. Until Michael Brown and Konstantin Batygin, a Russian-American astronomer, claimed on January 20, 2016 that their calculation demonstrated the existence of a ninth planet. The two astronomers even point out that it is a planet ten times heavier than Earth.
Its existence is explained by the fact that some dwarf planets behave strangely by going in only one direction. According to the researchers, this planet is very far from the Sun, so much so that it would take between 10,000 and 20,000 years to circle it. Note that so far, no giant telescope has been able to confirm its presence.