A Case for Ten Planets

Clyde Tombaugh (1906-1997) spent the first fifteen years of his life on a farm near Streator, Illinois, and then his family moved to a farm near Burdett, Kansas (no wonder he got interested in astronomy!), and he went to high school there. Then, on February 18, 1930, Tombaugh, a self-taught amateur astronomer and telescope maker, discovered the ninth planet in our solar system, Pluto. It had been nearly 84 years since the eighth planet, Neptune, had been discovered, in 1846. And it would be another 62 years before another trans-Neptunian object (TNO) would be discovered.

Clyde Tombaugh made his discovery using a 13-inch f/5.3 photographic refractor at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Clyde Tombaugh was 24 years old when he discovered Pluto. He died in 1997 at the age of 90 (almost 91). I was very fortunate to meet Prof. Tombaugh at a lecture he gave at Iowa State University in 1990. At that lecture, he told a fascinating story about the discovery of Pluto, and I remember well his comment that he felt certain that no “tenth planet” larger than Pluto exists in our solar system, because of the thorough searches he and others had done since his discovery of Pluto. But, those searches were done before the CCD revolution, and just two years later, the first TNO outside the Pluto-Charon system, 15760 Albion (1992 QB1), would be discovered by David Jewitt (1958-) and Jane Luu (1963-), although only 1/9th the size of Pluto.

Pluto is, by far, the smallest of the nine planets. At only 2,377 km across, Pluto is only 2/3 the size of our Moon! Pluto has a large moon called Charon (pronounced SHAR-on) that is 1,212 km across (over half the size of Pluto), discovered in 1978 by James Christy (1938-). Two additional moons were discovered using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) in 2005: Hydra (50.9 × 36.1 × 30.9 km) and Nix (49.8 × 33.2 × 31.1 km). A fourth moon was discovered using HST in 2011: Kerberos (10 × 9 × 9 km). And a fifth moon, again using HST, in 2012: Styx (16 × 9 × 8 km).

Pluto has been visited by a single spacecraft. New Horizons passed 12,472 km from Pluto and 28,858 km from Charon on July 14, 2015. Then, about 3½ years later, New Horizons passed 3,538 km from 486958 Arrokoth, on January 1, 2019.

Only one other TNO comparable in size to Pluto (or larger) is known to exist. 136199 Eris and its moon Dysnomia were discovered in 2005 by Mike Brown (1965-), Chad Trujillo (1973-), and David Rabinowitz (1960-). It is currently estimated that Eris is 97.9% the size of Pluto. Not surprisingly, in 2006 Pluto was “demoted” by the IAU from planethood to dwarf planet status. (Is not a “dwarf planet” a planet? Confusing…)

My take on this is that Pluto should be considered a planet along with Eris, of course. The definition of “planet” is really rather arbitrary, so given that Pluto was discovered 75 years before Eris, and 62 years before TNO #2, I think we should (in deference to the memory of Mr. Tombaugh, mostly) define a planet as any non-satellite object orbiting the Sun that is around the size of Pluto or larger. So, by my definition, there are currently ten known planets in our solar system. Is that really too many to keep track of?

There is precedent for including history in scientific naming decisions. William Herschel (1738-1822) is thought to have coined the term “planetary nebula” in the 1780s, and though we now know they have nothing to do with planets (unless their morphology is affected by orbiting planets), we still use the term “planetary nebula” to describe them today.

In the table below, you will find the eight “classical” planets, plus the five largest TNOs, all listed in order of descending size. (The largest asteroid, Ceres, is 939 km across, and is thus smaller than the smallest of these TNOs.)

You’ll see that the next largest TNO after Eris is Haumea, and that its diameter is only 67% that of Eris.

I’ve also listed the largest satellite for each of these objects. Venus and Mercury do not have a satellite—at least not at the present time.

It is amazing to note that both Ganymede and Titan are larger than the planet Mercury! And Ganymede, Titan, the Moon, and Triton are all larger than Pluto.

Largest Objects in the Solar System

Object Diameter (km) Largest Satellite Diameter (km) Size Ratio
Jupiter 139,822 Ganymede 5,268 3.8%
Saturn 116,464 Titan 5,149 4.4%
Uranus 50,724 Titania 1,577 3.1%
Neptune 49,244 Triton 2,707 5.5%
Earth 12,742 Moon 3,475 27.3%
Venus 12,104 N/A N/A N/A
Mars 6,779 Phobos 23 0.3%
Mercury 4,879 N/A N/A N/A
Pluto 2,377 Charon 1,212 51.0%
Eris 2,326 Dysnomia 700 30.1%
Haumea 1,560 Hiʻiaka 320 20.5%
Makemake 1,430 S/2015 (136472) 175 12.2%
Gonggong 1,230 Xiangliu 200 16.3%

Should any other non-satellite objects with a diameter of at least 2,000 km be discovered in our solar system, I think we should call them planets, too.

Neptune, the Mystic

Many years ago I wrote a short poem while listening to the final and most otherworldly section of The Planets by Gustav Holst: Neptune, the Mystic.

Here it is:

Neptune, the Mystic from The Planets by Gustav Holst
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Vernon Handley
Ambrosian Chorus, John McCarthy
Alto ALC 1013
The endless poetry of space
Sends shivers across my spine,
And there upon the threshold sounds
The now distant drone of time.
Music fills the spacecraft
Starlight fills the night,
And there upon the threshold think
I wonder, was I right?
David Oesper

 

The Planets was written by Holst between 1914 and 1916, and the premiere performance was at The Queen’s Hall, London, on September 29, 1918.  Adrian Boult conducted the orchestra in a private performance for about 250 invited guests.  The Queen’s Hall was destroyed by an incendiary bomb during the London Blitz in 1941, seven years after Holst’s death in 1934.

Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930, and was considered to be the ninth planet until its controversial demotion by the IAU in 2006.  A number of composers have added a Pluto movement to The Planets (“Pluto, the Renewer” by Colin Matthews, for example), and even an improvised performance (“Pluto, the Unpredictable”) by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic.  I remember enjoying “Pluto, the Unknown” by American composer Peter Hamlin performed by the Des Moines Symphony in 1992, but unfortunately no recording of this work exists.

Evening Planets

The most convenient time for most of us to observe the planets is in the early evening.  With that in mind, I’ve prepared an ephemeris of favorable evening times to view each of the eight major planets of the solar system over the next ten years.  Some interesting patterns emerge, which I will comment on.

With the exception of Mercury, what follows is a range of dates when each planet is at least 10° above the horizon at the end of evening twilight at latitude 43° N.  Mercury, however, is never even above the horizon at the end of evening twilight.

Mercury’s Maximum
Altitude at 43° N
Solar Depression
Angle
End of
Twilight
13°
Civil
12°
Nautical
below horizon
18°
Astronomical

Here is a list of dates when Mercury is highest above the western horizon at the end of evening civil twilight.

Mercury

Dates – Highest Above
Evening Horizon
Altitude
Constellation
July 18, 2017
Leo
November 28, 2017
Sgr
March 15, 2018
12°
Psc
July 2, 2018
Cnc
November 10, 2018
Oph
February 27, 2019
11°
Psc
June 16, 2019
10°
Gem
October 20, 2019
Lib
February 11, 2020
11°
Aqr
May 30, 2020
12°
Gem
September 25, 2020
Vir
January 25, 2021
10°
Cap
May 14, 2021
13°
Tau
September 2, 2021
Vir
January 9, 2022
Cap
April 28, 2022
13°
Tau
August 14, 2022
Leo
December 24, 2022
Sgr
April 11, 2023
13°
Ari
July 28, 2023
Leo
December 8, 2023
Sgr
March 24, 2024
12°
Psc
July 11, 2024
Cnc
November 20, 2024
Oph
March 8, 2025
12°
Psc
June 25, 2025
Cnc
November 1, 2025
Sco
February 20, 2026
11°
Psc
June 9, 2026
11°
Gem
October 10, 2026
Lib
February 4, 2027
11°
Aqr
May 24, 2027
13°
Tau
September 15, 2027
Vir

Mercury, the innermost planet, whips around the Sun every 88 days (116 days relative to the Earth—its synodic period).  It never strays more than 28° from the Sun.

As you can see in the graph below, Mercury is presently highest above our evening twilight horizon when it reaches greatest eastern elongation in April, and lowest in October.

Similarly, greatest eastern elongations that occur in the constellations Taurus and Aries present Mercury highest above our evening twilight horizon, and Libra, the lowest.

Now, let us turn to Venus.  Unlike Mercury, Venus usually spends a considerable number of days well above the horizon near greatest elongation.  This occurs because Venus orbits further from the Sun—reaching a maximum angular separation of 47°— and because its orbital period is only 140.6 days shorter than the Earth’s: the Earth “keeps up” with Venus reasonably well as the two planets orbit the Sun (the synodic period of Venus is 583.9 days), so it is a long time between successive elongations.  In the next ten years, we will see Venus high above the evening horizon during only three intervals, though for a generous three or four months each time.

Venus

Dates – At Least 10° Above the Horizon
at the End of Evening Twilight
Constellation
January 2, 2020 – May 7, 2020
Cap – Tau
February 26, 2023 – June 3, 2023
Cet – Cnc
November 30, 2024 – March 2, 2025
Sgr – Psc

Now, we turn to the superior planets: Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.  These planets are visible in our evening sky during and after opposition.

Mars has the longest synodic period of all the major planets—780 days—so it takes an unusually long period of time for the orbital positions of Mars and the Earth to change relative to one another.  Approximately every two years we get the opportunity to see Mars at least 10° above the horizon at the end of evening twilight.  The number of evenings Mars is visible varies quite a lot (due to its significant orbital eccentricity): 293 evenings during the 2018 perihelic opposition of Mars, down to 145 evenings during the aphelic opposition of Mars in 2027.  In any event, Mars spends a considerable amount of time during these intervals very far away from Earth and therefore disappointingly small in our telescopes.  The best time to observe Mars is during the early weeks of the intervals listed below when Mars is at or near opposition.

Mars

Dates – At Least 10° Above the Horizon
at the End of Evening Twilight
Constellation
July 21, 2018 – May 10, 2019
Cap – Tau
October 5, 2020 – May 27, 2021
Psc – Gem
November 28, 2022 – June 11, 2023
Tau – Cnc
January 7, 2025 – June 22, 2025
Cnc – Leo
February 12, 2027 – July 7, 2027
Leo – Vir

Jupiter orbits the Sun every 11.9 years, so it is easy to see why it is in a different constellation along the zodiac each year.

Jupiter

Dates – At Least 10° Above the Horizon
at the End of Evening Twilight
Constellation
March 30, 2017 – July 24, 2017
Vir
April 29, 2018 – August 29, 2018
Lib
May 28, 2019 – October 19, 2019
Oph
June 26, 2020 – December 10, 2020
Sgr
July 30, 2021 – January 22, 2022
Aqr
September 10, 2022 – March 1, 2023
Psc
October 21, 2023 – April 5, 2024
Ari
November 28, 2024 – May 5, 2025
Tau
January 1, 2026 – May 28, 2026
Gem
February 2, 2027 – June 16, 2027
Leo

The orbital periods of Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are 29.5, 84.0, and 164.8 years, respectively, so we can see why they take a successively longer amount of time to traverse their circle of constellations.  You’ll also notice that the interval of visibility shifts later each year, but the shift is less with increasing orbital distance.  The synodic periods of Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are 378.1, 369.7, and 367.5 days, respectively.

Saturn

Dates – At Least 10° Above the Horizon
at the End of Evening Twilight
Constellation
May 31, 2017 – October 25, 2017 Oph
June 10, 2018 – November 11, 2018 Sgr
June 20, 2019 – November 28, 2019 Sgr
June 30, 2020 – December 12, 2020 Cap – Sgr
July 12, 2021 – December 27, 2021 Cap
July 24, 2022 – January 9, 2023 Cap
August 7, 2023 – January 23, 2024 Aqr
August 21, 2024 – February 4, 2025 Aqr
September 5, 2025 – February 17, 2026 Psc
September 20, 2026 – March 2, 2027 Cet – Psc

Uranus

Dates – At Least 10° Above the Horizon
at the End of Evening Twilight
Constellation
October 2, 2017 – March 16, 2018
Psc
October 7, 2018 – March 20, 2019
Ari
October 12, 2019 – March 23, 2020
Ari
October 15, 2020 – March 27, 2021
Ari
October 20, 2021 – March 31, 2022
Ari
October 25, 2022 – April 4, 2023
Ari
October 30, 2023 – April 7, 2024
Ari
November 3, 2024 – April 12, 2025
Tau
November 8, 2025 – April 16, 2026
Tau
November 13, 2026 – April 20, 2027
Tau

Neptune

Dates – At Least 10° Above the Horizon
at the End of Evening Twilight
Constellation
August 13, 2017 – January 30, 2018
Aqr
August 16, 2018 – February 2, 2019
Aqr
August 19, 2019 – February 4, 2020
Aqr
August 21, 2020 – February 6, 2021
Aqr
August 24, 2021 – February 8, 2022
Aqr
August 27, 2022 – February 11, 2023
Aqr
August 30, 2023 – February 13, 2024
Psc
September 1, 2024 – February 15, 2025
Psc
September 4, 2025 – February 17, 2026
Psc
September 7, 2026 – February 17, 2027
Psc