Caltech astronomers, including Mike “Pluto Killer” Brown, announced this week that they have strong evidence for a ninth planet in our solar system. “Planet 9” as they call it, is a gas giant 5,000 times bigger than Pluto and billions of miles farther away.
The catch: nobody has actually seen Planet 9 yet. The astronomers reported their research, based on mathematical and computer modeling, in The Astronomical Journal this week. They anticipate its discovery via telescope within five years or less, and they want help.
“We could have stayed quiet and quietly spent the next five years searching the skies ourselves and hoping to find it. But I would rather somebody find it sooner, than me find it later,” Brown told The Associated Press. “I want to see it. I want to see what it looks like. I want to understand where it is, and I think this will help.”
Well OK then! Space kittehs, to your telescopes! There are new planets to be found.
The Kuiper Belt is a vast region of space filled with “small bodies”, icy remnants of the formation of the Solar System made of compounds like methane, ammonia and water. It is also home to everyone’s favorite dwarf planet, Pluto.
Artist Jantje Visscher made a light sculpture inspired by images of the Kuiper Belt and the idea of microwaves dancing in outer space, created when the Big Bang occurred. The piece is made from drawings etched into silvery Mylar sheets that bounce light from an overhead fixture onto the wall.
Simple, beautiful and dazzling, Kuiper Belt invites viewers to reflect on the existence of celestial bodies almost unfathomably old and distant, now brought closer by both art and technology.
You can see more of Jantje Visscher’s work here.
This week, we learned that one of the top threats to the US power grid is neither terrorists nor hackers but – wait for it – squirrels. According to ossim website Cybersquirrel1.com, more than 600 successful attacks have been launched on power networks by squirrels since 1987. Squirrels are by far the most active, but birds, raccoons and snakes have also launched over 300 successful “cyberattacks”, while human hackers, foreign and domestic, have managed only to take down a few twitter accounts and magazine websites. It’s pitiful, really.
What does this have to do with cats, you ask? Who do you think is running those crack troops of cybersquirrels? Dogs?
The Finch and Pea 