There are eight known planets in the solar system (after the Pluto controversy), but for some time, there has been some evidence that there may be an extra planet.
Scientists have so far been elusive to find an imaginary ninth planet, but a new study has determined where this supposed celestial body should be.
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Caltech researchers Mike Brown and Konstantin Patiz have mapped the orbit of a hitherto undiscovered mysterious planet.
In a blog post, Brown said the “highest probability” of the ninth place is closest to the aphelion, which is the farthest from the sun, at 60 degrees (the angle between the celestial body’s hour circle and the vernal equinox point), “the closest to the galaxy.”
If Planet Nine were actually at an average distance from Apogee, it would be about 500 astronomical units (AU) or about 46.5 billion miles from the Sun.
When mapping the entire sky, astronomers go 360 to 0 in right ascension.
“We calculate the probability distribution function for that space using models of orbital molecules and models of radii and albedo (capable of reflecting light falling on it from a light source such as the sun). The sky and its brightness for Planet Nine,” the scientists wrote in the paper.
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They added: “For many reasonable assumptions, Planet Nine is closer and brighter than initially expected, although there is a longer tail in the probability distribution, and the uncertainty in Planet Nine Radius and Albedo will lead to blurred objects.”
Looking at some known objects in the Khyber belt of Brown and Body, they created the map, post-Neptune bodies, many of which have strange orbits, which scientists believe may have been affected by Planet Nine.
Researchers have used clusters of Khyber belt objects to symbolize the existence of Planet Nine, a naturally occurring phenomenon.
“After updating the calculations of the observed dependencies, we found that the star cluster was still significant at the 99.6% confidence level,” the authors wrote, meaning that the cluster has only a 0.4% chance of an accident.
When they recalculated the orbit of Planet Nine, they were able to pinpoint exactly where to look.
More than 2,000 objects have been identified in the Khyber belt, but NASA says there may be “hundreds of thousands” in the area.
In their analysis, scientists estimate that Planet Nine is 6.2 times heavier than Earth and that its peak (the closest point to the Sun) is about 300 AU.
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Its inclination (how inclined it is compared to the plane of the solar system) is about 16 degrees. By comparison, EarthSky.org claims that the Earth’s tilt is 0 degrees, and Pluto’s 17 degrees.
An interesting aspect of the study is that the newly calculated orbit brings nine planets closer to the Sun than previously thought. This is strange because if it were close, we should have already discovered it.
Scientists so far observe that the observations reject the Planet Nine’s closest options and help further reduce its potential location. And if this planet already exists, it should be discovered by Vera Rubin in the future.
This study is not conclusive, and many astronomers argue that Planet Nine is not yet. But these results make it clear that we do not need to discuss this for too long because it will soon be discovered, or observations will dismiss it as an explanation for the Khyber belt star clustering effect.
Source: Daily Mail
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