Ninth planet may have been discovered

Scientists are asking for help in spotting the mysterious and elusive “Planet X”, which experts believe is a true ninth planet in our solar system, unlike the dwarf planet Pluto.

Astronomers say they’ve found evidence that our solar system may hold another giant planet, hidden in the dark, distant badlands far beyond Neptune’s orbit.

So far, the planet has not been observed directly.

“We know the early history of the solar system was chaotic – and there’s evidence for a larger planet escaping all together – but the details are murky at best”. Both are researchers at the California Institute of Technology, The AP reports.

This is a distant view from Planet Nine back toward the sun.

For the first time in 150 years, there is convincing evidence that census of the solar system is incomplete, said Caltech astronomer Michael Brown.

It all started in 2014 with the investigation of 13 objects in the Kuiper Belt-a region of the solar system beyond Neptune filled with comets and other icy bodies, as well as dwarf planets including Pluto.

There’s plenty of excitement at the announcement overnight that a new planet is potentially waiting to be found at the extremes of our solar system.

Brown and planetary scientist Konstantin Batygin feel certain about their prediction, which at first seemed unbelievable to even them. “I don’t see any alternative explanation to that offered by Batygin and Brown”. “I would say the odds just went from 50 percent to 75 percent that this distant massive planet is real”. A more plausible cause could be the fact that a ninth planet could affect the small planetary bodies into these orbits due to its gravitational pull.

But the new discovery by Dr Brown and his team is bound to be treated with scepticism until direct observation of the planet is made.

Rather, the scientists make the claim based on the way other far-flung objects are seen to move.

Brown actually discovered one of these six objects more than a decade ago: Sedna, a large minor planet way out there on the solar system frontier.

“I went from trying very hard to be sceptical that what we were talking about was true, to suddenly thinking, “this might actually be true”.

“It was probably the runt of the family”, said Sheppard, who co-wrote the paper that originally piqued Brown’s interest.

“One very interesting thing is that the planet is predicted to be between Earth and Neptune in mass. We see lots of planets this size in our surveys of planets elsewhere in the galaxy, and it’s been something of a mystery as to why our solar system doesn’t have its own version of this very common planet type”, he added. The potential ninth planet, at its closest, would be about 20 billion miles away from the sun (or 200 to 300 astronomical units); at its farthest, it could be 100 billion miles away.

Trujillo and Sheppard noted that several Kuiper belt objects had similar orbital characteristics, and they laid out the possibility of a planet disturbing the orbits of these objects.

A number of powerful telescopes are on the lookout for Planet Nine now, and the astronomers hope to spot it sometime within the next five years.

Brown said, “We have felt a great disturbance in the force”.