Planet IX and Sedna

Beginning of this year, the discovery of planet IX was announced by astronomers from Caltech University. The scientific work, which was based on numerical simulations, was not received without some healthy skepticism. The predicted planet is to far away to be directly detected by modern telescopes, so the question of planet IX's existence is the perfect 'edge of science' that skeptics so dearly love.

Our speaker this night is an expert in this field, and also does research on the behaviour (and predictions thereof) of bodies in the outer reaches of the Solar System. The minor planet Sedna, discovered in 2004, plays an important role in this, as the behaviour of it's orbit also hinted at something like a planet IX out there.

Simon Portegies Zwart is professor in computational astrophysics at the Sterrewacht Leiden in the Netherlands. His principal scientific interests are high-performance computational astrophysics. This includes parallel algorithms and numerical integration techniques, but also multi-scale and multi-physics modelling, the evolution of hierarchical stellar and planetary systems, and the ecology of dense star clusters.

As usual we'll start at 20:00, but of course feel free to walk in from 19:30 or so!