Recent evidence suggests the existence of a concealed Planet 9, comparable in size to Neptune, located on the outskirts of our solar system.

Recent discoveries indicate that there might be a Planet 9 beyond the existing solar system boundary, and this planet is as large as Neptune. On the 17th of April 2024, a pre-print study was published by researchers from Southwest Research Institute, Université Côte d’Azur, and Caltech. They concluded that the sum total of gravity from Planet 9 brings together a cluster of minor planets beyond Neptune. Unlike the isolated nature of rocky pebbles in the asteroid belt, such distant asteroids in our solar system are denser and clustered. This leads the researchers to hypothesize that a bigger object located farther from them is somehow pulling them around through gravity. Notably, this is how the existence of Neptune, the eighth planet was discovered when its existence interfered with Uranus.

The current subject of discussion, Planet 9, was introduced by Mike Brown and Konstantin Batygin, researchers from Caltech, and two of the four authors of the cited paper. In fact, Mike Brown who wrote a book about his discovery about the outer worlds of our solar system including the demotion of Pluto. The book giving some insight into his life and work is called “How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming. ”But these scientists believe that there is an even bigger object out there in the outer borders of our solar system than Pluto. Such an imaginary planet would be 400-800 astronomical units from the Sun and have the mass of five Earths or closer to the size of Neptune.

However, the paper has not yet been peer-reviewed and has been published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. The paper is also available on arXiv and a copy is provided here.

Batygin on Event Horizon podcast

Batygin said on John Michael Godier’s podcast Event Horizon that this is:

the fifth and most statistically significant evidence we have to date for the existence of Planet 9.

Batygin also said:

What we looked at in this paper is a population of Trans-Neptunian Objects that we had ignored up until now. These are populations of long-period icy asteroid-like things that typically live beyond the orbit of Neptune … but have orbits that pierce the orbit of Neptune. We also specifically looked at the population of Neptune-crossers that live close to the plane of the solar system.

So, because the objects cross Neptune’s orbit and are getting pushed around by the giant planet, if left alone they would have dispersed. As Batygin said:

The fact that we see them at all necessitates some form of gravitational influence. … What we show in this paper is that not only is Planet 9 up to the task, moreover it’s that the orbital distribution that Planet 9 predicts is perfectly consistent with what we see in the data.

According to Batygin, a solar system devoid of a Planet 9 may be excluded with a five sigma degree of certainty. In domains like particle physics, this value is deemed sufficient to announce a finding. A “gold standard” would be around one in a million chances that the outcome was arbitrary.

Planet 9, galactic tide or black hole?

As to whether there are any other explanations for the clustering of TNOs besides the Planet 9 some of it will be explained below. Cosmic tide is one of the hypotheses which have been considered and it states that several black holes blend and form one space-time structure that forms a cosmic tide. Scientists, particularly astronomers, have also explored the force of gravity associated with the galaxy as well. But where the model failed was when they compared the distribution of these objects and realized that the galactic tide cannot account for this distribution. On the other hand, the concept of Planet 9 appears more plausible than the existence of an unknown planet in the inner Solar system.

Another interesting proposal that was not discussed in the study is that Planet 9 could be a supermassive black hole. One printed media writer, Gregory S. Paul has described how Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb has advanced a technique for hunting for what might be black holes that may be drifting in the far reaches of the solar system. This method consists of searching for flashes that result from any contacts made by remote objects with black holes.

The Vera Rubin Observatory that is yet to be launched is expected to be launched by early 2025 and can offer more information about earth’s mysteries and black holes in the solar system in relation to, Planet 9.

Regretfully, the newest discoveries published in scholarly journals do not give an indication of where to look, literally where to point our telescopes in the direction of intense searching for Planet 9. Therefore, the search continues.

Announcement on social media

Here’s how lead author Konstantin Batygin announced the discovery on social media:

New P9 evidence comes from a population of dynamically unstable long-period TNOs that cross Neptune’s orbit. Full paper here: https://t.co/0f6SQHZ2Rv and a brief thread below. pic.twitter.com/oQDHvnmsMk

— Konstantin Batygin (@kbatygin) April 18, 2024

In the new study, we explored the opposite end: the most unstable, long-period TNOs (perihelion <30 AU) near the solar system’s plane. There are 17 such objects with a>100AU, and notably, their perihelion distribution is almost flat between ~15 to 30 AU. pic.twitter.com/Nw8GgrGNSB

— Konstantin Batygin (@kbatygin) April 18, 2024

We carried out detailed calculations for both the P9 scenario and the Galactic-tide model. Results show that while Planet 9 produces a flat perihelion distribution of Neptune-crossers (mirroring observed data), the model without P9 results in a distribution peaked around 30 AU. pic.twitter.com/MuqcdUK3wc

— Konstantin Batygin (@kbatygin) April 18, 2024

Bottom line: Researchers said the bunching of small objects beyond Neptune’s orbit fits perfectly with the existence of a Planet 9 hiding on the outskirts of our solar system.

Source: Generation of Low-Inclination, Neptune-Crossing TNOs by Planet Nine

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