In the outskirts of our solar system, billions of kilometers past Pluto, there might be a
mysterious planet lurking in the abyss.
The hypothetical body is known as Planet X or Planet Nine, and some astronomers have
been trying to prove its existence for a good chunk of the last decade.
It’s believed that the phantom planet has a mass about 10 times that of Earth making
it close in size to our ice giants.
Like many other celestial objects, Planet Nine is thought to orbit the Sun except it
takes a much longer elliptical route, traveling an estimated 20 times farther from the Sun
on average than Neptune.
NASA says at that distance, it may take between 10,000 and 20,000 Earth years to make one
full orbit around the sun.
Planet Nine is too far to be observed with a modern telescope, but a planet as big as
it’s believed to be should leave a trace of its presence in the gravity it exerts on other objects.
And that thought process is based off of Sir Isaac Newton’s law of universal gravitation,
which established that the gravitational force between two bodies is proportional to their masses.
This formula essentially shows that an object with a larger mass will have an effect on an
object with a smaller mass.
Take Jupiter, for example.
The gas giant is so large, its gravitational pull impacts the smaller celestial bodies
around it, trapping them in its orbit and altering their trajectories.
Jupiter’s pull is even thought to be the reason why Mars’s orbit is slightly elliptical.
Planet Nine believers are pointing to Newton’s law of universal gravitation as a basis for its existence.
Due to the discovery of several distant objects that are behaving in an unusual way.
The objects in question are located in the inner Oort Cloud, a mysterious region that
surrounds the solar system like a bubble.
The group has complimentary orbit patterns that swing far out in the same general direction
and then cluster as they round the Sun.
It’s believed these similarities are a result of Planet Nine’s
gravitational pull, and a recently discovered dwarf planet is giving more weight to this scenario.
The pint-sized planet, nicknamed The Goblin, travels about 2,300 astronomical
units away from the Sun at its most distant point and 65 AU at its closest.
To put that into perspective.
One AU is equal to the average Earth-Sun distance which is about 150 million kilometers.
So there are still 9.6 billion kilometers between The Goblin and the Sun
at their closest point.
Because of this extreme distance, the gravity of the known planets in the outer solar system
are unlikely the cause of The Goblin’s unusual behavior.
So, there has to be something else perturbing these distant celestial bodies, right?
Well, while there are a few astronomers that are 90 percent sure Planet 9 is the culprit
others aren’t so sold on its existence.
Some non-believers do think that something is affecting the objects,
but say an undiscovered planet probably isn’t the cause.
For now, the sample size of these distant objects is just too small to draw any conclusions.
But NASA says the Oort Cloud may contain more than a trillion icy bodies, so it’s likely
that new discoveries could increase the possibility of a potential phantom planet.
And that's exactly the hope of the Planet Nine hunters.
So they'll continue to search for more dwarf planets
like The Goblin in their quest for the ultimate astronomical achievement.
If you want to see more Space Crafts, check out this playlist here.
And be sure to let us know in the comments what astronomical phenomena you want to learn more about.
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