The hunt for ninth planet of our solar system continues for quite a while now, and this time the evidence is more compelling than ever. A team of astronomers has analyzed the behavior of distant and unstable celestial objects crossing Neptune's orbit, discovering patterns that strongly suggest the presence of a massive body not yet identified. The research could rewrite the astronomy textbooks.
The first traces of the ninth planet
In 2015, two astronomers of the California Institute of Technology they presented interesting evidence: six objects beyond the orbit of Neptune appeared to be clustered together in a particular way, as if they were “driven” by a strong gravitational pull. Although some suggested that this could be a statistical anomaly, the team continued to believe that these movements were influenced by a large, yet unknown celestial object.
Their insights were given new life in a recent study, which looked at objects with long orbital periods that intersect Neptune's path. These celestial bodies showed an orbital point closest to the sun between 15 and 30 astronomical units, where one astronomical unit represents the distance between the Sun and the Earth.
The dynamics described here, along with all the other evidence for the ninth planet, will soon be subjected to a rigorous test with the start of operations of the Vera Rubin Observatory.
There are those who say no: two hypotheses compared
Not everyone agrees on the existence of the ninth planet. Another research team proposes an alternative explanation: the unusual orbits could be the result of a close encounter between our Sun and another star, which occurred billions of years ago.
Researchers They conducted as many as 3.000 simulations, considering stars of different masses that passed near our Sun at varying distances. Although it is estimated that we have only discovered between 1 and 10% of trans-Neptunian objects, the simulations produced interesting results.
Amith Govind, co-author of the study on the “close encounter” hypothesis, explained that the best result was obtained by simulating the passage of a star slightly lighter than our Sun (about 0,8 solar masses) at a distance of about 16,5 billion kilometers, about 110 times the Earth-Sun distance.
The future of research
Evidence for the existence of the ninth planet will soon be put to the test thanks to theObservatory Vera Rubin, in Chile. This new phase of exploration promises to provide crucial insights into the mysteries of the outer regions of our solar system.
The research has been published in two prestigious journals: the study on “Planet Nine” appeared in The Astrophysical Journal Letters (I link it here), while the one on the “close encounter” was published on Nature Astronomy (here it is, at your disposal).
The discovery of thousands of exoplanets over the past few decades has shown how much we still have to learn about our universe. And perhaps, right in our cosmic backyard, there is still a world waiting to be discovered.
