My class is in the middle of an investigation of outer space right now. A pair of recent news stories has intensified their interest. This past weekend, a very bright meteor lit up the skies over D.C. One student was lucky enough to have seen it from his back yard. (Yes, I am jealous.) A couple of weeks before that, researchers from CalTech revealed evidence that there’s an undiscovered planet in our solar system, far beyond the orbits of the other eight planets. This new-to-us planet, dubbed “Planet Nine,” hasn’t been observed, but something big seems to affecting other bodies gravitationally.
There aren’t many clues as to what Planet Nine might be like. So I challenged my students to create their own renderings. Here’s what they came up with.
“I think it might have a tail. I think it might be green.”
“I think it has dots. And stripes.”
“This is a double planet…”
“I think it has fire balls…”
“It has circles…”
“I think it has my name…”
“I think it’s rainbow colored.”
“This is just a planet. It doesn’t have anything.”
Who knows; maybe one of them will be close. Of course, nature itself may very well reveal something even stranger.