Grape Fruit Sized Black Hole In The Outer Solar System

Before I begin, I must state that my Physics and my AstroPhysics at that is (are) really weak. So, please do question everything that I write here.

Over the summer, the following news item caught my attention.

Planet Nine could be a grapefruit-sized black hole, say astrophysicists

• First of all, the title is misleading. Because no planetary body has been identified in the Trans-Neptunian region, something that can actually be categorized as a planet. Or a structure with the kind of gravitional pull that has been suspected. It would be useful if the word ‘supposed’ was added to the beginning of the headline. This would have made the headline structually sound.
• That being said, if there is indeed a Black Hole in a specific range. In such a scenario and given a particular (x) (set of) probability(ies) attached to this hypothetical event, we should be expending a lot more resources. For the purpose of validating this hypothesis or the original set of findings. As well, work towards figuring out what the implications are going to be for life on earth and potentially elsewhere across the solar system.

Next, I believe the ‘specific range’ that I was referring to is actually called the Schwarzschild radius

Related to this new item: As of right now, there is a small team of three individuals at Harvard who have been looking into this.

Now, if this object does have a, quote “mass of five to ten times that of the Earth.” What matters in this situation is: * The actual orbit and trajectory of this thing. * The rate at which it is moving about it’s orbit/trajectory. * Contingent upon what this thing really is (if it exists), how will it be impacting comets/asteroids/planets and maybe even the sun. If it were to come into contact with an entity in either one of these scales. I guess those are three different set of large scale simulations. Depending on the size, comets and asteroids could be lumped into a single category. It really depends upon the size.

Again, if this exists. Then, from my extremely limited vantage point, the best and the worst case scenarios would sit somewhere between the following set of spectrums. Including, but certainly not limited to: * The best case scenario would be that some comets and asteroids are disturbed and either just whiz around the solar system or are swallowed in. Swallowed by the black hole, if that’s how a blackhole of this kind of a gravitional pull is actually going to function. * Somewhere along the middle, this thing whizzes by earth and at the very least leads to a decrease in Earth’s Axial tilt. This is in the domain of Milankovitch cycles. There are different estimates on how the tilt plays into climate cycles (non-human made in this scenario). A reduction in tilt by a certain factor, can bring about an ice age. There are three different ranges for these orbital variations and ice-ages and one of them is the 21,000 year mark (Link included. Originally observed as one of the two links via Wikipedia’s entry on Milankovitch’s cycles). I am going with surface level information here, but NASA’s website suggests that the Hypothetical Planet X may, quote, “take between 10,000 and 20,000 Earth years to make one full orbit around the Sun.” Source.
* When it comes to the worst case scenario, again, I guess this goes back to the gravitional pull of this object. What it’s really like and how that behaves/works with matter of different shapes/sizes/types (solid vs gas). I guess, in terms of the worst case scenarios, I am thinking if this thing was too close to a planet and what would happen in that scenario.

Overall, it’s impossible for me to really extrapolate what the best and also worst case scenario may actually turn out to be. I am assuming that the team at Harvard is thinking about these issues.

Update on October 31, 2020: I’ve been told that this object may have negligible gravitational influence on earth. There is no/doesn’t appear to be any risk of this object impacting Milankovitch cycles. I was also educated that some 35 years it was hypothesized that the Sun is bound to a companion star. A Nemesis star was it was called. The WISE telescope has not been able to find any evidence of any such companion star.

Next * From the perspective of the current state of the technological development of our species, I guess we aren’t really sending probes inside of this thing. Or even near x distance from it. From what little I gather, the probes would just melt or the information would be stripped away (Depends on how a black hole actually does it’s thing) * It would be pretty cool, if we could send some kind of a probe inside and through a black hole. Something at this (yet to be verified) and also of other scales of gravitational pull. If the probe could actually survive that journey, then that would be even cooler! (or hotter or something else).

Although, I wonder how relativity would play out. I guess that would determine upon how long and the speed at which that information actually has to travel through/travels through. First when the space time distortion is occuring and then at and then beyond the singularity. Do the equations of classical relativity even hold steady around and in a black hole?

I guess it really has to do with the nature of space time inside a black hole and much time would have elapsed. This is all hypothetical, but it’s interesting to think about this. Imagine actually being able to, somehow peer through the black hole and into another universe. Or maybe we will be peering into a greater/larger black hole.

Coming back to the subject, if a black-hole of this scale is indeed in the outer solar system, then I’d think (from my uneducated perspective) that this is something that warrants a lot more attention.

Related Notes: * I got a sense of how far away the outer solar system is, when I was talking to Iwin a couple of months ago. At that time, I kind of knew that in terms of light distance or speed of light, Neptune is a good 4 hours away from the sun. Roughly about the same time from earth, as it takes 8 minutes for sunlight to get to earth. * In terms of actual distance, Earth is 149 million km(s) from the Sun. Neptune is 4.49 billion kms from the sun. So do the math. This does go back to the questions I started with, what is the actual orbit and trajectory of this thing and the speed that it is moving at.

Overall, has anyone been looking into this in a bit more detail? Would love to learn more.