"Shift-Stacking" Method Used to Search for Dim Solar System Objects
takyon writes:
Lighting a path to Planet Nine
The search for Planet Nine - a hypothesized ninth planet in our solar system - may come down to pinpointing the faintest orbital trails in an incredibly dark corner of space.
That's exactly what Yale astronomers Malena Rice and Gregory Laughlin are attempting with a technique that scoops up scattered light from thousands of space telescope images and identifies orbital pathways for previously undetected objects.
[...] To detect objects that are otherwise undetectable, Rice and Laughlin employ a method called "shifting and stacking." They "shift" images from a space telescope - like moving a camera while snapping photos - along pre-defined sets of potential orbital paths. Then they "stack" hundreds of these images together in a way that combines their faint light.
[...] Rice said shifting and stacking has been used in the past to discover new solar system moons. This is the first time it has been used on a large scale to search a wide area of space. The images she and Laughlin used came from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, a space telescope normally used to search for planets outside our solar system.
The researchers tested their method by successfully searching for light signals of three known, trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs). Next, they conducted a blind search of two sectors in the outer solar system that might reveal Planet Nine or any previously undetected Kuiper belt objects - and detected 17 potential objects.
Also at EarthSky.
Exploring Trans-Neptunian Space with TESS: A Targeted Shift-Stacking Search for Planet Nine and Distant TNOs in the Galactic Plane (arXiv:2010.13791)
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