Artist’s illustration of Planet Nine, a world about 10 times more massive than Earth that may lie undiscovered in the far outer solar system. Credit: Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC)
Space researchers James Vesper and Paul Mason with New Mexico State University have given a presentation at this year’s American Astronomical Science meeting outlining the results of simulations they have been running to learn more about Planet Nine—a planet that many in the space science community believe exists far beyond Pluto. They presented evidence suggesting that if Planet Nine is out there, it is likely a rogue.
Planet Nine was first predicted to exist just 2 years ago, when a team of investigators noticed what appeared to be an unknown gravitational influence in the outer solar system. Since then, other researchers have also noticed gravitational influences consistent with a planet 10X the size of Earth. Prior research has also suggested that if the planet does exist, it likely orbits the sun at ~1000 AU (the Earth resides at 1 AU). In this new effort, the researchers ran 156 computer simulations designed to show what sort of impact such a planet would have on our solar system if it came from somewhere else—a rogue planet that wandered close enough to our sun to be captured by its gravitational pull.
Rogue planets are those that either developed outside of the solar system, or developed in another star system and then somehow escaped. In either event, they travel alone through space. The researchers report that their simulations showed that 60% of the times a rogue planet encountered our solar system, it came in and then left, sometimes taking another smaller planet with it. In 40% of cases, however, the rogue was captured and remained in orbit. The simulations also suggested that if such a rogue was captured, it could orbit the sun at the speculated distance and that it was unlikely that a planet any bigger than Neptune has ever entered our solar system—the orderliness of our system suggests it has not been disturbed since the period when the solar system was created. Space scientists believe Planet Nine will be confirmed soon, perhaps as early as next year.
http://www.space.com/35277-planet-nine-captured-rogue-exoplanet.html
http://phys.org/news/2017-01-simulations-planet-rogue.html
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