• Question: how could I find a new planet?

    Asked by Emma to Greg, Laura, Mobeen, Paul on 16 Mar 2016.
    • Photo: Paul O'Mahoney

      Paul O'Mahoney answered on 16 Mar 2016:

      Usually planets are found by looking in to the sky with really fancy telescopes and measurement systems – so maybe get along to your local observatory! Some planets we have found but haven’t actually seen, like Planet IX. We found traces of it’s orbit, kind of like it’s footprints, but have yet to actually determine where it exactly it is in it’s orbit.

    • Photo: Laura Haworth

      Laura Haworth answered on 16 Mar 2016:

      Apparently these are the 5 ways of how to find a planet.
      http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/system/interactable/11/index.html

    • Photo: Greg Melia

      Greg Melia answered on 16 Mar 2016:

      The planets at the outside of our solar system were found by looking at other planets and realising that their orbits weren’t quite what they should be, so they must be being distorted by another planet’s gravity.

      Further out in space, I think some planets are detected when astronomers look at stars and see them get slightly dimmer as planets go across them on the same side as the earth.

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