Planet x where is it

The majority of the planets with the exceptions of Uranus and Neptune were known to science in antiquity and in that sense, we have made few advances since the invention of the telescope. Over the last few years, however, we have discovered a series of huge rocky objects beyond Neptune that we have grouped together under the name of trans-Neptunian objects, also known as the Kuiper belt in honor of astronomer Gerard Kuiper, who predicted its existence in The belt consists of thousands of icy bodies, the majority of which are smaller than Texas if it was three-dimensional and that are, literally, the debris from the formation of the Solar System.

The Kuiper belt contains a couple of objects that are very famous: one is Pluto, the other is Arrokoth which means sky or cloud in the Powhatan language , previously known as Ultima Thule, and the most distant object studied in space by a spacecraft to date when New Horizons made a flyby on January 1, Most of the objects in the Kuiper belt move much as would be expected due to the mutual gravitational influence generated by the presence of the eight planets and the Sun.

Up to that point, everything is in order. However, a problem arises because since , a series of objects have been identified making peculiar movements in this zone of the Solar System. It is like looking at a moving swing in a tree with nobody sitting on it: we know that someone must be pushing it.

Perhaps the biggest one of all is where did it come from? It likely formed in the inner Solar System and got flung outward, perhaps by Jupiter or Saturn. But before those questions can be answered, Planet X must be found. And those on the hunt are sure it will happen. Cookie banner We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from.

By choosing I Accept , you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. An artistic rendering of Planet 9 or Planet X. Image: Carnegie Institution of Science. Filed under: Science. Share this story Share this on Facebook Share this on Twitter Share All sharing options Share All sharing options for: The search for Planet X gets a boost with the discovery of a super distant object. Linkedin Reddit Pocket Flipboard Email.

Report TikTok tics are a symptom of a much bigger problem. Loading comments Soon scientists realised that this could not be what Lowell was looking for — it was not nearly large enough to pull Neptune and Uranus away from their rightful positions. Pluto was just an accidental interloper, which happened to be in the area. The final blow to planet X came in , when the Voyager 2 spacecraft swept by Neptune and revealed that it's fractionally lighter than anyone had originally thought.

With this in mind, eventually a Nasa scientist calculated that the orbits of the outer planets had made sense all along. Lowell had instigated a search that had had never been needed. But just as the concept of a hidden planet was killed off, the groundwork was laid for its resurrection.

In , two astronomers who had "doggedly scanned the heavens in search of dim objects beyond Neptune" for years, according to Nasa, discovered the Kuiper Belt. This cosmic donut of frozen objects, extending just beyond the orbit of Neptune, is one of the largest features in the solar system. It's so vast, it's thought to contain hundreds of thousands of objects larger than km 62 miles across , as well as up to a trillion comets.

Soon scientists realised that Pluto was unlikely to be the only large object in the outer reaches of the solar system — and began to question whether it was actually a planet at all. It became clear that astronomers needed a new definition. In , the International Astronomical Union voted to demote Pluto's status to a "dwarf planet", along with the newcomers.

Mike Brown, a professor of planetary astronomy at the California Institute of Technology — Caltech — who led the team that identified Eris, is self-styled as the "man who killed Pluto" to this day. The ninth planet was no more. At the same time, the discovery of these objects uncovered a major new lead in the search for a hidden planet. It turns out that Sedna is not moving in the way everyone expected — tracing elliptical rings around the Sun, from within the Kuiper Belt.

Its orbit is so meandering, it takes 11, years to complete — the last time Sedna was at its current position, humans had only just invented farming. Percival Lowell established his observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona to look for intelligent life on Mars. Eventually it was used to find Pluto Credit: Alamy.

Enter a hypothetical new addition to our solar system — but not as it was thought of before. In , the same Mike Brown who had slain Pluto, together with his colleague Konstantin Batygin — also a professor of planetary science at Caltech — co-authored a paper proposing a massive planet , between five and 10 times the size of Earth. Their idea came from the observation that Sedna was not the only object out of place. It was joined by six others , and all of them are being pulled in the same direction.

There are also other clues, such as the fact that each is tilted on its axis in exactly the same direction. The pair calculated that the probability of all six objects being pulled in the exact same direction, with the same tilt by chance was just 0.

Instead, they proposed that Planet Nine had left its ghostly imprint in the outer reaches of our solar system, distorting the orbits of the objects around it with its gravitational pull.

Several years on, and the number of objects that fit the eccentric orbital pattern and tilt has continued to increase, "We now have around 19 overall," says Batygin.

Though no one has yet seen the hypothetical planet, it's possible to infer a surprising amount about it. Scientists have also hazarded a guess at its aesthetic — icy, with a solid core, like Uranus or Neptune. The new analysis paints a picture of a planet with a mass five times more than Earth's and which is located about astronomical units AU away. For comparison, Pluto is only about 40 AU from us.

The authors also conclude that the unseen planet is likely to be a rocky super-Earth rather than a gas giant. But the prospects for habitability are of course quite dim, just as the sun would be at such a distance. The paper also seeks to address some of the criticisms of the Planet Nine hypothesis and alternate explanations for the weirdness observed in the Kuiper Belt. For example, Batygin and colleagues are not convinced by a competing theory that says a massive disk of debris beyond Neptune could explain the weird orbits of distant Kuiper Belt objects as well as an unseen super-Earth.

In other words, there are multiple reasons to believe that Planet Nine is real, not just one," said co-author Fred Adams.