There could be a ‘Planet Nine’ in our solar system.
Scientists have said they have found evidence that there is a hidden planet in our solar system.
Astronomers have noticed unusual behaviour on the edge of our solar system for years, with some suggesting that the only explanation for this is an undiscovered planet.
This could help explain the orbits of celestial bodies at the very edge of our solar system, more than 250 times further away from the Sun than we are.
Astronomers have calculated there is a 7 per cent chance that Earth has another neighbour hiding in the Oort cloud, a spherical region of ice chunks and rocks that is tens of thousands of times farther from the sun than we are.
If a planet is hiding in the Oort cloud, it’s almost certainly an ice giant.
Large planets like Jupiter and Saturn are generally born as twins. They have huge gravitational pulls of their own, however, and sometimes destabilise one another.
Another astronomer by the name of Konstantin Bogytin recently found new evidence to support the theory that another planet exists in our solar system.
Bogytin is one of the main supporters of the theory, and says his new work represents “the strongest statistical evidence yet that Planet 9 is really out there.”
Objects on the edge of our system are called trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) as they sit beyond Neptune, the furthest planet from the Sun.
The scientists looked at a number of these TNOs and tried to understand their movements. Usually, these objects are unstable due to how they interact with Neptune’s orbit, so astronomers tend to avoid using them in research.
Dr Bogytin says his team found that the best explanation for their movements is an undiscovered planet, the Independent reports.
After carrying out simulations to understand what affected the orbit of the TNOs – which included factors such as Neptune’s gravitational pull, passing stars, and the ‘Galactic tide’ that comes from the Milky Way – they concluded that the best explanation was another planet.
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The model that included a ninth planet delivered the best results, Dr Bogytin said.
His team acknowledged that there were other possible explanations for the way the TNOs acted – including the possibility that a planet had existed but has since been knocked away from our system – but said the Planet Nine theory was the best one.
An observatory is being built in Chile which the researchers said would be able to provide a better understanding of the existence of a Planet Nine.
When the Vera C Rubin Observatory is turned on, will be able to scan the sky to understand the behaviour of those distant objects.
You can read a paper describing the work here.
