Planet Nine tagged posts

An artist’s illustration of a possible ninth planet in our solar system, hovering at the edge of our solar system. Neptune’s orbit is shown as a bright ring around the Sun. Credit: ESO/Tom Ruen/nagualdesign

It might be lingering on the icy outer edges of our solar system, stretching out the orbits of distant bodies, perhaps even tilting the entire solar system to one side. It is a possible “Planet Nine” – a world perhaps 10 times the mass of Earth and 20 times farther from the sun than Neptune. The signs so far are indirect, mainly its gravitational footprints, but that adds up to a compelling case nonetheless. One of its most dedicated trackers, in fact, says it is now harder to imagine our solar system without a Planet Nine than with one.

“There are now five different lines of observati...

Artist’s illustration of a possible ninth planet in our solar system. A recent study has revealed that the unexpected behavior of some Kuiper belt objects could be explained by the presence of a distant, planet-sized object yet undetected in our solar system. Credit: Caltech/Robert Hurt

Planet Nine the undiscovered planet at the edge of the solar system that was predicted by the work of Caltech’s Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown in January 2016 appears to be responsible for the unusual tilt of the Sun, according to a new study. The large and distant planet may be adding a wobble to the solar system, giving the appearance that the Sun is tilted slightly...

Dimitri Veras. The fates of Solar system analogues with one additional distant planet, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2016). DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stw2170

The solar system could be thrown into disaster when the sun dies if the mysterious ‘Planet Nine’ exists, according to research from the University of Warwick. Dr Dimitri Veras in the Department of Physics has discovered that the presence of Planet Nine – the hypothetical planet which may exist in the outer Solar System – could cause the elimination of at least one of the giant planets after the sun dies, hurling them out into interstellar space through a sort of ‘pinball’ effect...

An artist’s concept of a trans-Neptunian object(TNOs). The distant sun is reduced to a bright star at a distance of over 3 billion miles. Credit: NASA

The mysterious Trans-Neptunian Object (TNOs) lie beyond the orbit of Neptune. For years, astronomers have been discovering bodies and minor planets in this region which are influenced by Neptune’s gravity, and orbit our sun at an average distance of 30 Astronomical Units. In recent years, several new TNOs have been discovered that have caused us to rethink what constitutes a planet, not to mention the history of the solar system.

The most recent of these mystery objects is called “Niku”, a small chunk of ice that takes its name for the Chinese word for “rebellious”...