What does the discovery of a real 9th planet in our solar system tell us about BI, Big Data, collaboration and the insights we look past?
Scientists at Caltech have potentially discovered a 9th planet in our solar system. Just when I was getting over the downgrading of beloved Pluto to a dwarf planet, evidence has been found of a planet with a mass 20 times that of Earth and 20 times farther away from the Sun than Neptune. If their calculations prove correct, astronomers Mike Brown and Konstantin Batygin will have made the first new discovery of a planet orbiting our Sun in over 150 years. In an age of the Hubble telescope and interstellar missions such as Voyager 1 and 2, that look deeper into space for discoveries about the universe, this discovery in our own solar system is significant. It offers a lesson on finding valuable insights close to home – ones that are too often overlooked.
In the world of BI and analytics, we routinely encounter organizations that are contemplating investments in Big Data without obtaining value from the data they have already. It is not surprising that scientists, looking deeper at the information they had on hand, made a discovery that Konstantin Batygin, assistant professor of planetary science at CalTech, said for the first time in more than 150 years suggests “that the solar system planetary census is incomplete.”
At Caltech scientists made the discovery by looking deeper at existing information. They were able to collaborate to produce insight, analyzing information from their different perspectives; Mike Brown as a traditional astronomical observer and Konstantin Batygin as a theorist of computer data models. The collaboration allowed them to challenge each other and to consider new possibilities. Iterative analysis led to the conclusion that a planet of significant size must be present to explain the unusual orbits of several small icy bodies.
The fact that this planet may have been discovered without direct observation is particularly noteworthy. It shows the impact of data analysis of objects in the Kuiper Belt, the region beyond Neptune peppered with myriad asteroids and other small solar system bodies. Now, based on the theory, scientists will look at existing data from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) to try to find it in a dataset collected from 20% of the sky. Astronomers weren’t looking for a planet of this type or size in the WISE survey, so finding it would have been impossible. Now that they know what to expect, they will use the right data to confirm their discovery.
Any organization needs to have an idea of what questions need to be answered before working on reporting on data to draw insights out of it. But, like these scientists, end users also need to look where the data takes, them, drilling in and through the data to expand on that initial analysis.
Since no one has laid eyes on it yet, theoretically amateur astronomers might get a look at planet number 9. Unfortunately this particular planet – if it is out there – may be too far away for any but the most powerful telescopes to view. But the history of planetary discovery is filled with insights that came from amateurs.
Too often organizations restrict data access to specific roles or disciplines, thereby sacrificing the benefits of a diversity of viewpoints and skills. They are better served with a free flow of information to all of the end users who need to make decisions based on data insights. Like the scientists reexamining data available through WISE, their work will be informed by the insights gleaned from analysis performed by others, one of the goals of embedded BI and analytics.
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