Planet X is Real: Scientists Find Evidence for 9th Planet In Our Solar System

According to National Geographic: A planet larger than Earth could be hiding in the cold, dark depths of the solar system. The presence of the planet, which would lie far beyond Pluto, is betrayed by the curious orbits of a handful of distant icy worlds.

As described Wednesday in the Astronomical Journal, the gravitational signature of a large, lurking planet is written into the peculiar orbits of these farflung worlds. Called extreme Kuiper Belt Objects, the misbehaving bodies trace odd circles around the sun that have puzzled scientists for years.

It’s tantalizing evidence that a ninth large planet might live in the solar system, though the world hasn’t been detected yet. “If there’s going to be another planet in the solar system, I think this is it,” says Greg Laughlin of the University of California, Santa Cruz. “It would be quite extraordinary if we had one. Fingers crossed. It would be amazing.”

The team calculated that the planet, if it’s there, would be about 10 times as massive as Earth, or roughly three times larger. That makes it a super-Earth or mini-Neptune—a type of planet the galaxy is incredibly efficient at assembling, but which has been conspicuously absent from our own neighborhood.

The recent discovery that the orbits of some Kuiper belt objects (KBOs) share properties has proved puzzling. A pair of scientists have now proposed a bold explanation: there may be a planet-sized object yet undetected in our solar system.

Mysterious Clustering

KBOs, the population of mainly small objects beyond Neptune, have proven an especially interesting subject of study in the last decade as many small, distant bodies (such as Eris, the object that led to the demotion of Pluto to dwarf planet) have been discovered.

Planet X May Be Real – Evidence Mounting For 9th Planet 

A possible planet – larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune – orbiting the Sun once every 15,000 years, could explain the peculiar clumping of Kuiper Belt Objects in our solar system. Astronomers Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) describe how large telescopes could detect this world, if it exists. 

Observations of the orbits of six small objects have led researchers to propose a very large 9th planet–100s of astronomical units (AU) away from the sun. Far enough away that this Neptune-sized planet takes ~15,000 years to complete one orbit.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/01/150119-new-ninth-planet-solar-system-space/

http://aasnova.org/2016/01/20/a-ninth-planet-in-our-solar-system/

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/01/feature-astronomers-say-neptune-sized-planet-lurks-unseen-solar-system