Planet Nine

Caltech researchers have found evidence of a giant planet tracing a bizarre, highly elongated orbit in the outer solar system. The object, which the researchers have nicknamed Planet Nine, has a mass about 10 times that of Earth and orbits about 20 times farther from the sun on average than does Neptune (which orbits the sun at an average distance of 2.8 billion miles). In fact, it would take this new planet between 10,000 and 20,000 years to make just one full orbit around the sun.

The researchers, Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown, discovered the planet's existence through mathematical modeling and computer simulations but have not yet observed the object directly.

"This would be a real ninth planet," says Brown, the Richard and Barbara Rosenberg Professor of Planetary Astronomy. "There have only been two true planets discovered since ancient times, and this would be a third. It's a pretty substantial chunk of our solar system that's still out there to be found, which is pretty exciting."

Brown notes that the putative ninth planet--at 5,000 times the mass of Pluto--is sufficiently large that there should be no debate about whether it is a true planet. Unlike the class of smaller objects now known as dwarf planets, Planet Nine gravitationally dominates its neighborhood of the solar system. In fact, it dominates a region larger than any of the other known planets--a fact that Brown says makes it "the most planet-y of the planets in the whole solar system."

Seabin

Andrew Turton and Pete Ceglinski have a dream: to rid the ocean of all litter. While this might seem like an insurmountable goal, they’re taking it head-on.

They’ve created something called the Seabin, which is to be placed in harbors, yacht clubs, and other marinas where the water is relatively still. With the power of a pump, water flows into the contraption, taking debris and pollutants with it. The solid trash is caught in a mesh basket, while the water flows back into the ocean, but not before passing through a purifying filter.

While it might seem like a Seabin scattered here and there throughout the world wouldn’t make a huge difference, every little bit counts. When you see how much garbage just one bin can collect, you’ll become more conscious of how much garbage is out there, and we’ll hopefully work harder to change our ways. It really is incredible how horribly we treat the oceans and other bodies of water, which take up 71 percent of the planet we live on.

The hope is that the plastic collected in Seabins will go toward creating more Seabins, which will then collect more pollution… and so on and so forth.