The Grip Tightens on the Hypothetical Planet Nine

The ninth planet, or Planet X / Planet Nine, is a hypothetical celestial body suspected of lurking in the confines of our Solar System far beyond Neptune, in the Kuiper Belt. This distant region is home to a multitude of objects whose unusual orbits have suggested the existence of a large planet.

Michael Brown and Konstantin Batygin, two astronomers from Caltech, proposed the hypothesis of this Ninth Planet's presence by analyzing these unusual orbits. According to their calculations, this planet would be about seven times more massive than Earth, making it the fifth largest planet in the Solar System, located between 310 and 370 billion miles (500 and 600 astronomical units) from the Sun.


However, despite almost a decade of efforts, Planet Nine remains elusive, mainly due to the uncertainty surrounding its elliptical orbit, which could take between 5,000 and 10,000 years to complete. A new study, using data from Pan-STARRS in Hawaii, managed to exclude over three-quarters of its suspected orbital path, bringing researchers closer to their target.

To spot Planet Nine, scientists monitored its orbital path at monthly intervals, looking for bright objects that changed position each month. To test their odds of success, they introduced more than 50,000 false Planet Nines into the data, locating 99.9% of these decoys. This strategy provides insight into the likelihood of having missed the real Planet Nine in the analyzed region.

The efforts to discover this mysterious planet do not stop there. Researchers plan to use data from the Subaru Telescope to probe spaces that have been inaccessible so far. If this approach proves unsuccessful, the future Vera C. Rubin Observatory could be the key to solving this cosmic riddle. Optimism remains high, with Michael Brown anticipating the discovery of Planet Nine within the year following the observatory's commissioning in 2025.