Explorer #22: Searching for Planet Nine with Dr. Konstantin Batygin

The Accent Podcast

Dr. Konstantin Batygin is a Professor of Planetary Science at the California Institute of Technology. Professor Batygin and his colleague, Michael Brown, have found evidence of a giant planet tracing a bizarre, highly elongated orbit in the outer solar system. The object, which they have nicknamed Planet Nine, has a mass about 10 times that of Earth and orbits about 20 times farther from the sun on average than does Neptune (which orbits the sun at an average distance of 2.8 billion miles). In fact, it would take this new planet between 10,000 and 20,000 years to make just one full orbit around the Sun.

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TIMESTAMPS

01:45 Elon Musk vs Mark Zuckerberg

03:35 Encounter with conspiracists

06:40 Rumors of Alien space crafts

10:15 Where to look for life in the Universe

12:50 Planet Formation

17:20 Discovering planets

25:20 Pluto is no longer a planet

27:40 Planet Nine

34:30 Hypothesis of other cosmic bodies

35:15 Primordial Black Holes

43:15 Music Career

52:25 Scientific awards

57:40 Immigration to Japan and USA

01:01:30 Lex Fridman

01:02:30 Parents influence