The Brute-Force Search for Planet Nine
arXiv:2004.14980
Abstract
A recent proposal for the detection of a hypothetical gravitating body 500 AU from the Sun (termed Planet 9) calls for a fleet of near-relativistic spacecraft, equipped with high-precision clocks, to be sent to a region where the object is suspected to be. We show that the technological constraints of such a mission can be relaxed somewhat, while improving the sensitivity: high-precision clocks can be avoided when the transverse displacement induced by Planet 9 is measurable with Earth-based, or near-Earth, telescopes. Furthermore, we note that in the absence of Planet 9, these spacecraft still yield useful data by mapping gravitational perturbations in the outer parts of the solar system.
5 pages, fixed typo
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Cited by in corpus (6)
- Exploration of the outer solar system with fast and small sailcraft
- Can Planet Nine Be Detected Gravitationally by a Sub-Relativistic Spacecraft?
- Detecting Planet 9 via Hawking radiation
- Searching for a Black Hole in the Outer Solar System
- Project Lyra: Catching 1I/'Oumuamua -- Using Laser Sailcraft in 2030
- A search for Planet Nine with small spacecraft:Three-body, post-Newtonian, non-gravitational, planetary and Kuiper Belt effects