Mike Brown and Planet Nine

Voice 1
Welcome to Spotlight. Im Bruce Gulland.

Voice 2
And Im Liz Waid. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for
people to understand, no matter where in the world they live.

Voice 1
Look up at the night sky. If you are in a very dark area, you will see billions of stars. You can
look through a telescope to make objects in the sky look bigger and closer. Then you will also
see planets that orbit our sun. In all, there are eight of them. The planets Mercury and Venus
are closer to the sun than our planet Earth. But Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are
further away from the sun than the Earth.

Voice 2
But some people think that there are more than eight planets orbiting the sun. Pluto also orbits
the sun. It orbits at an even greater distance than Neptune. For many years, people called
Pluto a planet. However, about ten years ago scientists decided that was not correct - Pluto
was not a real planet. But now some people think that they have found another real planet -
Planet Nine.

Voice 1
Dr Mike Brown is a scientist at the California Institute of Technology. He is an astronomer who
observes the planets in our solar system. Todays Spotlight is on Dr Mike Brown and his work
on Pluto and Planet Nine.

Voice 2
Astronomers discovered Pluto in 1930. They had very little information about it. But they called
it the ninth planet. During the next 60 years the telescopes and technology used by
astronomers improved. Astronomers could see more and more in the sky. By the 1990s
astronomers started to see other objects in the same area as Pluto. The astronomers called
this area the Kuiper Belt. There were many Kuiper Belt Objects. And some were similar to
Pluto. Some scientists began to ask a very important question. Were these objects planets like
Pluto? Or was Pluto not a planet?

Voice 1
Then in 2005 Dr Mike Brown made an important discovery. He saw a bright object in a
computer picture from a telescope. He had found a large object in the Kuiper Belt. Scientists
later called it Eris. Brown saw that Eris had a larger mass than Pluto. Immediately he knew that
Eris would cause trouble for planet Pluto. He told the Washington Post,

Voice 3
I did a quick estimate to see how big this object was. We did not know exactly how big it was at
the time. But it was clearly the size of Pluto or much bigger. Either this was going to be a new
planet, or Pluto was in trouble.

Voice 2
Brown was right. Some people may ask why calling Pluto a planet or not even matters. But
defining something correctly helps people understand it better. So, in 2006 the International
Astronomical Union decided that the word planet should have a new definition. They said that
a true planet must also clear the area around its orbit. But Pluto shares its orbit with other
Kuiper Belt Objects. So Pluto - and Eris - were not true planets.

Voice 1
Some scientists did not agree with this decision. Other people just did not like losing Pluto as a
true planet. Some of them blamed Brown. And he even received some unpleasant letters and
telephone calls about Pluto. These people felt both anger and sadness that Pluto was not a
planet. Brown also gained a new name Pluto Killer.

Voice 2
Browns daughter, Lilah, was also sad that Pluto was not a planet. Later she told him that she
would forgive him if he found a new planet. Brown remembers that she said to him,

Voice 4
Daddy, what you need to do is go find a new planet so that people will no longer be sad about
Pluto.

Voice 1
Then in 2016 Brown and his co-worker, Konstantin Batygin, surprised everyone. They
announced that they had good evidence for another planet. They had used computer modeling
to find the planet. The new planet was on the far outer edge of the solar system. They called it
Planet nine. They had not seen the planet directly. But they had observed its effect on other
objects in the Kuiper Belt. These objects were affected by the pull of gravity of a much larger
object. Brown told the BBC,

Voice 3
So we have not seen it yet. But I would say that we have felt it. Or, we can see its gravitational
affect on the outer part of the solar system. That is really the sign. We see that it is pushing
around these very very far away objects.

Voice 2
Brown and Batygin believe that Planet Nine is a big gas planet far away. It takes between
10,000 and 20,000 years to orbit the sun. It is ten times larger than Earth.

Voice 1
Brown and Batygin know that other scientists must see Planet Nine before they can accept it as
a real planet. So they want other people to look for it too. Brown accepts that he may not be the
person who finds the planet. He says that he wants a worldwide search for this ninth planet. He
told the Washington Post,

Voice 3
In the end discovery means it has been seen. We think we know the orbit. But we do not know
where on the orbit that planet is. And we have not seen it yet. This document we published is
like giving everyone a treasure map. It is going to depend on the luck of the person who points
the telescope in the right place first. It is going to take a lot of hard work, but also a lot of luck.

Voice 2
But what will Planet Nine be called when someone finds it? Brown and Batygin do not know.
They think that giving a planet a name is something too big and important for one person to
decide. Browns daughter suggested it be named for her - The Lilah Planet. Brown and Batygin
discussed calling it George. Brown told the BBC,

Voice 3
The first proposed name for Uranus was George. William Hershal discovered it and he wanted
to name it after King George. He did not get his way. We have talked about maybe we should
call this one George just to honour Herschal.

Voice 1
What do you think Planet Nine should be called? What name would you give it and why? You
can leave a comment on our website. Or email us at radio@radioenglish.net. You can also
comment on our Facebook page at facebook.com/SpotlightRadio.

Voice 2
The writer of this programme was Katy Blake. The producer was Michio Ozaki. The voices you
heard were from the United Kingdom and the United States. All quotes were adapted for this
programme and voiced by Spotlight. This programme is called Mike Brown and Planet Nine.

Voice 1
You can also get our programmes delivered directly to your Android or Apple device through
our free official Spotlight English app. We hope you can join us again for the next Spotlight
programme. Goodbye.

Question:
Who do you think should name a big new discovery? Should the person who discovered it
name it? Other experts? Should people name it?