Scientists find new evidence for ‘Planet Nine’ at edge of solar system

But now, according to researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), there is considerable evidence for the existence of a giant planet past Pluto, which is being simply referred to as Planet Nine. This celestial body has been dubbed ‘Planet Nine, ‘ and assuming it exists, it lies far out in the solar system in the Kuiper belt.

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. Unlike dwarf planets, which is a category in which Pluto is included, Planet Nine gravitationally dominates its neighborhood of the solar system.

Neptune, the eighth planet in the solar system orbits at 30 AU from the Sun.

Pluto, the first ninth planet, was demoted to the status of dwarf planet by the International Astronomical Union in 2006.

How a planet ended up so far away and secreted away in a unusual orbit remains a question.

But not every prediction has led to an actual planet, said Robert Massey, deputy executive director of Royal Astronomical Society in London. He thinks the odds of finding the planet is 70%.

Brown and his colleagues say they have begun searching the skies for Planet Nine, although only the planet’s rough orbit is known – not the precise location of the planet on that elliptical path.

Two astronomers reported that all signs pointed towards the discovery of a ninth planet – as the objected discovered more accurately fits the description of a planet than Pluto did. Ever since they pointed it out we’ve been scratching our heads… the only way to get these objects to line up in one direction is to have a massive planet lined up in the other direction… Brown and Batygin have been looking for the planet for “a while now”, and know “its path, but not where it is on that path”.

Astronomers claim the solar system could host the planet that’s 10 times bigger than the Earth.

Six of those objects had an orbit that suggested they were circling some distant object, which the researchers now believe is the ninth planet in our solar system.

So now that many astronomers will be on the hunt to prove this new planet exists, it might be time to start coming up with names for it and rethinking mnemonics like “My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine”. 20 billion to 100 billion miles… that a single orbit of the sun takes between 10,000 and 20,000 years. They looked closer at the orbits of four other Kuiper belt objects and determined that another large planet had to be out there.

“I would love to find it”, said Brown.