Placeholder Image

字幕表 動画を再生する

  • Over the past century, astronomers have speculated

  • about the existence of a mysterious 9th planet

  • lurking in the outer reaches of our solar system.

  • Although we've never directly observed the elusive "Planet X,"

  • researchers keep finding more strange phenomena that seem to support its existence.

  • This is WHAT IF, and here's what would happen if Planet X was real.

  • Scientists believe that Planet X, also referred to as Planet 9,

  • is about 17 times bigger than Earth, and made entirely out of gas.

  • You'd think it would be easy to spot something so big,

  • but it orbits the sun about 10 to 20 times farther away than Pluto.

  • Finding this planet would teach us more about how solar systems evolve,

  • but could it also bring about the end of days?

  • So far, our hunt for Planet X has been mostly based around the idea of

  • "if there's smoke, there's fire."

  • And in this case, the "smoke" is a bunch of weird things going on amongst the stars.

  • In 1972, astronomers noticed some irregularities in the course of Halley's comet;

  • detours that they figured were caused by

  • the gravitational pull of an unseen, distant planet.

  • Fast forward ten years to 1982, when scientists were once again

  • forced to consider the existence of a hidden planet.

  • They hypothesized that an unknown, outer planet

  • could be orbiting within our solar system,

  • and causing the orbits of Uranus and Neptune to deviate from the laws of physics.

  • But the most concrete evidence came in 2014,

  • when astronomers noticed some distant dwarf planets and icy objects

  • that all seemed to follow orbits that cluster together.

  • Upon closer inspection, they estimated that the powerful gravitational pull

  • of a hidden planet must've been the cause of these unusual orbits.

  • So with all these signs pointing to the existence and location of Planet X,

  • why haven't we been able to see it yet?

  • Well, it's really, really far away, and out in space things get dark pretty fast.

  • The intensity of the sunlight weakens by a factor of four going out,

  • and then four times again reflecting back.

  • To put that in perspective: a planet that's twice as far away as our moon

  • would be 16 times fainter.

  • On top of that, the planet could be lost in the light pollution of the Milky Way,

  • or the glare of a bright star.

  • But with modern technology, astronomers believe

  • we'll be able to find Planet X in 10 to 15 years.

  • The leading team in California uses one of the most powerful telescopes in the world

  • and has released a map of where to look

  • to increase the chances of finding it through crowd-sourced astronomy.

  • If Planet X is real, it would redefine our knowledge of our solar system's evolution,

  • and give us key insights into how other solar systems are formed throughout the universe.

  • For as long as serious scientists have been looking at Planet X,

  • there have been others who have proclaimed

  • that its strange orbit will eventually collide with Earth.

  • But this has been rejected as nothing more than pseudoscience, and an internet hoax.

  • Scientists say that Planet X would be kept well beyond Neptune throughout its orbit,

  • even when it's closest to the sun.

  • So even though we can't see it, it doesn't mean our 9th planet isn't there.

  • Maybe one day we'll develop technology that can identify worlds

  • even further out than Planet X,

  • but that's a topic for another WHAT IF.

Over the past century, astronomers have speculated

字幕と単語

ワンタップで英和辞典検索 単語をクリックすると、意味が表示されます

B1 中級

もしも惑星Xが実在していたら? (What If Planet X Was Real?)

  • 1 1
    林宜悉 に公開 2021 年 01 月 14 日
動画の中の単語