Have we ever seen what's on the other side of the sun?

Question

This may seem a silly question to you astronomer-types, but the other night I was watching some silly movie about there being a planet on the exact opposite side of the sun that rotates exactly like we do, so it's always on the opposite side.

How would we know? Have we ever sent a telescope/satellite to the other side, or perhaps while orbiting another planet we saw the other side?

Please, be kind lol, you are speaking to the truly ignorant :)

Answer 1

All the planets in the solar system interact gravitationally with each other. Earth's orbit around the sun is partially influenced by the other planets, as are the orbits of Mercury, Venus, Mars, etc.,. After hundreds of years observing and studying the orbital motions of the planets, we can accurately nail down what the mass of each planet must be to cause those orbits. If there were another planet on the other side of the sun, the observed orbits would be different because that additional world's mass would influence them.

Answer 2

I can imagine your surprise at watching a Sci Fi Movie and learning that there was a mystery planet on the other side of the Sun that we couldn't see... Wow!!! What a fantastic idea.
I am very sorry to tell you that what you watched was indeed only a Sci Fi Fiction Movie. There is no secret planet hiding on the other side of our Sun. We, on the Earth, rotate completely around 360 degrees in one Earth Day. We are also flying around the Sun in an eliptical orbit which takes about 365 Earth Days. So, we see all sides of the Sun from all possible places on Earth. If there were some mystery planet out there, its shadow would have blocked off our view of another planet in our Solar System at some point in time. Or, if you will permit this, it would have been detected by one of the space probes which we have launched into deep space on various missions. Those probes are far enough away to have had a clear view back toward Earth, the Sun, and any mystery planet that might have been hidden there.

Look at the movie you saw as a realy neat contrivance (made up fiction). I think if you look at it that way you will enjoy some of the author's tricks even more, because he was clever enough to make the boloney believeable. That takes talent.

Good Luck with your star gazing,
Zah

Answer 3

Some good answers above: it would be picked up gravitationally, and it would have been detected by some of the many probes that have been sent out there.

One other thing is that the sun from our perspective occupies a fairly small area of the sky. Don't do this with the sun, as you will blind yourself, but go out and measure the moon with finger and thumb (the moon is visually the same size as the sun). You will be surprised. Both are tiny, about 7 hundredths of an inch (2 mm) when measured from a standard 10 inches (25cm) from the eye.

What this means is that since all the planets have some slight inclination to our orbit, this other planet would have to have pretty much the same plane of orbit as the earth to stay hidden behind that tiny image of the sun. And it would have to be perfectly in tune with the Earth's orbital period to stay hidden behind the sun.

Not on, I am afraid.

Answer 4

Many space craft have seen the other side of the Sun. Any space craft orbiting Mars for example passes on the other side of the Sun along with Mars once every 26 months. But no search for a planet in Earth's orbit but 6 months ahead has ever been conducted because orbital mechanics shows that such a planet would not remain there over long time scales. Instead it would drift to one of the Lagrange points 60 degrees ahead of or behind the Earth in orbit. That location does have some asteroids, but no planet.

Answer 5

For the Sun itself, it rotates once every 25 days. So yes, we have seen the other side of the sun.

For a counter-Earth on the "exact opposite side", its gravity would disrupt the orbits of Venus and Mercury, and all the other planets. It would also screw up the orbits of the probes we have sent to Venus and and other parts of the solar system. Unless it was *very* small -- like less than 100 kilometers across -- we could detect this.

Big or small, it could not stay on the opposite side for more than a few 10,000's of years -- it would drift away on it's own orbit, unless some magic power kept it there.

P.S. The Earth's Lagrange points have some dust and perhaps some small (less than 10 meters) rocks, but nothing larger.

Answer 6

If there were such a planet, it would have been detected by now. Many unmanned spacecraft have been sent out that would get a view of a planet like that.

Answer 7

Unless it weighed exactly the same as Earth, its orbit over billions of years would have varied enough that we would have collided with it.
But, you never know, that could be how we gained the moon.

Answer 8

Dont know what all these complicated answers are! The Earth revolves around the sun once every year! Of course we have!

Answer 9

wesw we've sent probes like voyager and viking ans hundreds of others farther out, into space to other planets and stuff.

There are no hidden planets we can't see.

Answer 10

if there is a hidden planet behind the sun how ill we possibly see it if it always stay behind the sun? that sounds cool though.