Planetary scientists and cosmologists at Penn work together to find planets that might be hiding in the far reaches of the solar system.
“Researchers discussed the technical and the computational hurdles of trying to combine CMB and optical data. Bernardinelli, an optical astronomer who collaborates with CMB researchers like Mark Devlinand John Orlowski-Scherer, says these discussions were fruitful. “It helped me to understand the challenges, both on the optical side and on the CMB side,” he says.
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The workshop concluded with a presentation by Bernardinelli on a Penn-led project using data from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) to search for objects in the Kuiper belt, where Bernardinelli and his collaborators have so far found more than 250 new trans-Neptunian objects, roughly 10 percent of all known distant solar system objects. Now that data collection is complete, a final analysis of the complete dataset will mean more chances to find new objects, including new planets.”