Title: Idea for Planet Nine search: Spatial-temporal clustering of stellar dimming / occultation alerts along the predicted orbit
Body:
Hello everyone,
I’ve been thinking about the challenges of detecting Planet Nine using the Rubin/LSST alert stream. While most efforts focus on direct detection of the planet’s faint reflected light via moving-object algorithms, I would like to propose a complementary idea: searching for linear spatial-temporal clusters of stellar dimming or “missing source” alerts.
The concept:
If a massive planet (like Planet Nine) is moving slowly along its predicted distant, eccentric orbit, it should occasionally pass in front of background stars, causing temporary drops in brightness or extended occultations.
Because the planet follows a specific trajectory, these rare dimming events (or transient source disappearances) wouldn’t be completely random. Over time, multiple events occurring near the predicted orbital path should exhibit a linear spatial-temporal alignment matching the expected orbital velocity vector.
My question to the community:
- Has anyone tried filtering alert brokers (such as Fink, Lasair, etc.) specifically for sudden, localized dimming events or missing sources?
- Is it feasible to run a clustering algorithm to look for a sequential “trail” of such events along the Planet Nine ephemeris?
I would love to hear your thoughts on whether this kind of occultation/dimming trail analysis could work as a secondary search method using Rubin data.
Best regards,
Mariusz