Earth-sized planet could be lurking at the edge of the solar system, simulations suggest – Physics World physicsworld.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from physicsworld.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The orbits of trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) can indicate the existence of an undiscovered planet in the outer solar system. Here we used N-body computer
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Planet Nine - also referred to as Planet X - is a massive, hypothetical object in an elliptical orbit far beyond Pluto, roughly at a distance that would take 10,000 to 20,000 Earth years for it to complete a single trip around the Sun.
Though no direct observations have ever been made of an object fitting the description of Planet Nine, unexpected patterns in the orbits of other, smaller objects in the icy outer reaches of the Solar System could be explained by the gravitational pull of such a body.
In early 2016, California Institute of Technology astronomers Mike Brown (famed for his role in demoting Pluto from its rank as the ninth planet in 2005) and Konstantin Batygin announced their observation of dwarf planet 2012 VP113 s orbit lining up uncannily well with the orbits of five other extreme trans-Neptunian objects.
Comments of the Week #118: From the LHC s discoveries to the first stars scienceblogs.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from scienceblogs.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Searching for Planet 9 and where new research fits into the overall existence of a theoretical super-Earth beyond Neptune
February 24, 2021
In large part, it is impossible to have escaped notice of a rather large debate swirling in the planetary community around a theorized super-Earth planet in the outer reaches of our solar system, the existence of which could be one possible explanation to several oddities observed in a very dynamic part of our galactic home.
So where does current research, distant solar system observations, and searches for the theoretical super-Earth, known both as Planet 9 or Planet X, reside?
To start, a brief history. The first proposals regarding the current Planet 9 candidate stemmed from a prolonged series of observations of extreme trans-Neptunian objects, or eTNOs. These are small rocky objects whose orbits are well beyond that of Neptune’s and have a semi-major axis (average orbital distance) of 150-250 AU (Astronomical Units, with 1 AU equal