By 2006, Pluto was officially recognized as the ninth planet of the Solar System. However, the international Astronomical Union has deprived him of the status of a planet, which is why our system now has only 8 planets. In 2016, scientists announced the possibility of the existence of a distant Ninth Planet at the far reaches of our solar system.
An artistic vision of the hypothetical Ninth Planet
By NASA/JPL-Caltech/Robert Hurt link [Public domain]
Researchers at the Caltech institute (California Institute of Technology) announced that they have evidence of the existence of an object about the size of the planet Neptune at a distance of about 700 AU (One AU is the Earth-sun distance). There is more and more evidence for the existence of this large, invisible planet in the outer Solar System. Recently, a distant dwarf planet 2015 TG387, named "Goblin", was discovered. As it turns out, its orbit is clearly altered by the gravity of a large-mass planet. Astronomers have noticed similar behavior of over 12 orbits of other objects in that area. The Ninth Planet is the only possible explanation for all phenomena that are observed there. The elliptical orbits of objects in this region are directed in the same direction as if they were laying along the path of a body with high gravity. The probability of such an arrangement formed accidentally is less than 0.1 percent. Based on the data currently gathered by the scientists, the chances of existence of this distant planet have been set at over 90 percent.
The Orbit of the Ninth Planet and the orbits of the asteroids that have changed after its passage
By Magenta Green link [CC0 license]
Where exactly is this object located? The planet remains undiscovered mainly because of the huge distance that separates us from it. Near 700 AU is an amazing distance that even for current telescopes is difficult to overcome. Even something as big as Neptune from this distance would have a weaker glow than the capabilities of most ground instruments. The Hubble Space Telescope is probably strong enough to detect an object, but it has such narrow fields of view that it would be difficult to hunt for the Ninth Planet. Until now, the search has included 25 percent of the regions at the ends of the solar system. In the future, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) will help in the search. He will start research in 2021. It was created mainly to search for asteroids threatening the Earth, but it is important in his case the ability to search wide sections of the sky. Researchers expect LSST to solve the mystery of the ninth planet within 5 years of starting the sky scan.
Greetings to lovers of Astronomy!
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