Evidence of ninth planet in solar system found, nicknamed ‘Planet Nine

“We’re talking, like, 200 times further away than the outermost planet now, Neptune”, said Wiggins.

Batygin and his colleague Mike Brown from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena suggested that the new large planet, dubbed Planet X or Planet Nine, is hidden somewhere beyond the orbit of Neptun, the eighth planet, and is believed to be ten times the size of Earth.

The solar system may host a ninth planet that is about 10 times bigger than Earth and orbiting far beyond Neptune, according to research published on Wednesday. It’s so distant that it would take a mind-blowing 10,000 to 20,000 years to circle the sun. Brown and a fellow Caltech professor Konstantin Batygin have provided an explanation for the planet’s existence. They learned that certain objects in the Kuiper belt form a unique arrangement when they come close to the sun.

He concludes by stressing that the actual planet, if it exists, has not yet been seen directly and that its existence has been inferred by its effect on the orbits of other objects which have been seen. What grabbed the attention of astronomers was the odd behavior of 13 objects in the Kuiper belt – a region of icy objects such as comets, asteroids and dwarf planets like Pluto.

“If you looked down on the solar system and had the sun in the center, all of these objects would head out to the 9 o’clock position”, Brown said. The orbits of all six bodies are present in the same quadrant of the solar system and tilted at the same angle.

Considering that Planet Nine is still a theory, there have been speculations over whether the scientists’ claims had a solid foundation.

The existence of the planet was announced in the Astronomical Journal.

Brown, whose username in Twitter is @plutokiller, has helped many scientists reshape the way people see the solar system.

Incidentally, Brown is one of the key persons who declared Pluto as a dwarf planet rather than a full-fledged one.

Already gearing up for questions over whether it’s a true planet, Brown points out that it is 5,000 times the mass of Pluto and gravitationally dominates its neighborhood of the solar system – more so than any other known planet.

Depending on where Planet Nine is in its “bizarre, highly elongated orbit”, many telescopes have a shot at finding it. Brown would love to find a planet he helped discover, “but I’d also be perfectly happy if someone else found it. That is why we’re publishing this paper”.