‘Planet Nine’: Evidence of new giant planet lurking beyond Neptune

They said that the ninth planet discovered is about 10 times bigger than Earth and orbiting far beyond Neptune. Also, the planet’s so far away from the Sun that it will probably take 20,000 years to complete one orbit around the star.

“This would be a real ninth planet“, says Brown.

Nevertheless, Batygin said the discovery really makes our solar system more normal.

Until a decade ago, Pluto was considered the ninth planet, however due to the work of Brown and others it was demoted to the status of a dwarf planet.

And because it’s so far, it’s almost impossible to see the planet – there are now two telescopes positioned in its direction. He said the following.

It is surrounded by much brighter lights – even the distant Pluto could be about 10,000 times brighter – and so scientists have to be sure that they point telescopes at exactly the right point and pick out an already very unlikely speck of light.

The two astronomers found the new potential planet while they were looking at those small rocks. “So I guess I’ve been working on this for her”.

Caltech colleague Dr Konstantin Batygin said: “Although we were initially quite sceptical that this planet could exist, as we continued to investigate its orbit and what it would mean for the outer solar system, we became increasingly convinced that it is out there”.

The initial evidence that something big might be affecting the orbits of distant bodies came in 2014.

The astronomers argue that it could be the gravitational pull of the giant Planet Nine basically herding these six into an orbit. Its orbit makes elongated loops, different from other planets, which have a more circular pattern.

The scientists say that there’s a 0.007 percent probability that the configuration is due to chance, and instead are confident it’s a ninth planet. The planet is thought to be gaseous, similar to Uranus and Neptune.

According to the researchers, Planet Nine helps explain a number of mysterious features of the field of icy objects and debris beyond Neptune known as the Kuiper Belt. Brown and Batygin set out to prove them wrong but ended up confirming their thesis using computer models.

Mike Brown wrote on his blog.

But when the International Astronomical Union decided in 2006, to issue a new definition of “planet”, neither Eris nor Pluto made the cut. The objects are likely from the Kuiper Belt, a region of the solar system beyond Neptune that is believed to contain many asteroids, comets, and other small bodies. Since 1845 there have been no new ones to discover.

“This would be a third”, Professor Brown said.