Why we can accurately detect stars billions of light years away, but we can’t confirm if we have a 9th planet in our solar system?
In: 2123
Simply put, stars shine and planets do not.
A star is pumping out a ton of radiation in various forms. Everything from radio waves to visible light, to gamma rays.
Planets reflect light. Which means far less light is reaching the viewer and tends to get drowned out by the light of the star they orbit (imagine trying to spot a pinhead when there is a super bright spotlight behind it…all you see is the spotlight…)
The hypothetical Planet 9 is very far out, and also may have a surface that doesn’t reflect much light. So it is literally just a shadow floating out in the blackness of space from our perspective.
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