Prospects for Unseen Planets Beyond Neptune
When
3:45 – 4:45 p.m., Aug. 28, 2018
Where
Kuiper Space Sciences, Room 308
Dr. Renu Malhotra
Regents' Professor
Lunar and Planetary Laboratory
Recent studies have appealed to anomalies in the orbital distribution of distant Kuiper belt objects to argue for the existence of a roughly Earth-size planet orbiting at about three times Neptune’s distance and a roughly Neptune-size planet orbiting at about twenty times Neptune’s distance. I will review the dynamical structure of the Kuiper belt and the case for the existence of such unseen planets in the distant solar system.