Planet Nine Might Be a Giant Illusion, Scientists Say, And Here s Why
15 FEBRUARY 2021
A hypothetical mystery planet thought to be responsible for strange orbits in the outer Solar System just got dealt one of its biggest blows yet.
According to a comprehensive analysis of extremely distant objects, led by physicist Kevin Napier of the University of Michigan, Planet Nine may not exist - because the evidence for its existence doesn t exist. Rather, what astronomers took to be the influence of a planet s gravity is instead selection bias in the observations.
The pre-print paper has been uploaded to arXiv, and awaits peer review.
Farfarout ice planetoid officially farthest thing from Sun in our solar system dailystar.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from dailystar.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Astronomers Just Confirmed The Most Distant Known Object in The Solar System
11 FEBRUARY 2021
The most distant known object in the Solar System is now confirmed. FarFarOut, a large chunk of rock found in 2018 at a whopping distance of around 132 astronomical units from the Sun, has been studied and characterised, and we now know a lot more about it, and its orbit.
It s about 400 kilometres (250 miles) across, which is on the low end of the dwarf planet scale, and initial observations suggest it has an average orbital distance of 101 astronomical units - that s 101 times the distance between Earth and the Sun.