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

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