15 Facts about Planet Nine: The Mysterious Giant

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In 2006, when Pluto lost its planet status, we were left with 8 planets. There is a chance that in the near future, the Solar System will be again a nine planet family. There is a Planet Nine hiding in the dark space, way beyond the known planetary boundaries.

Here are some interesting facts about the unknown giant planet ‘Planet Nine’:

Planet Nine is a hypothetical planet in the outer region of the Solar System. Its gravitational effects could explain the unusual clustering of orbits for a group of extreme Trans-Neptunian Objects (eTNOs)

These eTNOs tend to make their closest approaches to the Sun in one sector, and their orbits are similarly tilted. These improbable alignments suggest that an undiscovered planet (Planet Nine) maybe shepherding the orbits of the most distant known Solar System objects

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This undiscovered super-Earth-sized planet would have a predicted mass of five to ten times that of the Earth, and an elongated orbit 400 to 800 times as far from the Sun as the Earth (400 AU to 800 AU)

Planet nine is roughly 13 to 26 times the distance from Neptune to the Sun

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It would take the planet nine between 10,000 and 20,000 years to make one full orbit around the Sun

The Aphelion would be in the general direction of the constellation of Taurus; whereas the Perihelion would be in the general direction of the southerly areas of Serpens (Caput), Ophiuchus, and Libra

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Planet nine's inclination to the ecliptic, the plane of the Earth's orbit, is projected to be 15° to 25°

If Planet Nine exists, its mass should be sufficient to clear its orbit of large bodies in 4.6 billion years, the age of the Solar System

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His work is considered similar to more recent Planet Nine theories, that the planets would be responsible for a clustering of the orbits of several objects

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Konstantin Batygin and Michael E. Brown suggest that Planet Nine could be the core of a giant planet that was ejected from its original orbit by Jupiter. Others propose that the planet was captured from another star; was once a rogue planet, or that it formed on a distant orbit and was pulled into an eccentric orbit by a passing star

As of the end of 2018, no observation of Planet Nine had been announced. While sky surveys such as Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and Pan-STARRS did not detect Planet Nine, they have not ruled out the existence of a Neptune-diameter object in the outer Solar System

Appendix: Eccentric

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The gravitational influence of Planet Nine would explain four peculiarities: 1. The clustering of the orbits of eTNOs; 2. The high perihelia of objects like 90377 Sedna that are detached from Neptune's influence; 3. The high inclinations of eTNOs with orbits roughly perpendicular to the orbits of the eight known planets; 4. High-inclination trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) with semi-major axis less than 100 AU

Although other mechanisms have been offered for many of these peculiarities, the gravitational influence of Planet Nine is the only one that explains all four

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Batygin and Brown found that the orbits of the six eTNOs were clustered and there was only a 0.007% likelihood that this combination of alignments was due to chance. It may be due to eTNOs are avoiding close approaches to a planet

These six objects had been discovered by six different surveys on six different telescopes. That made it less likely that the clumping might be due to an observation bias such as pointing a telescope at a particular part of the sky

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These orbits are produced when some low inclination eTNOs enter a secular resonance with Planet Nine upon reaching low Eccentricity orbits

Appendix: ecliptic

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Due to its extreme distance from the Sun, Planet Nine would reflect little sunlight, potentially evading telescope sightings. According to University of Michigan professor Fred Adams, within the next 10 to 15 years, Planet Nine will either be observable or enough data will have been gathered to rule out its existence

Statistically, the planet is more likely to be at a distance greater than 600 AU

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Because the planet is predicted to be visible in the Northern Hemisphere, the primary search is expected to be carried out using the Subaru Telescope, which has both an aperture large enough to see faint objects and a wide field of view to shorten the search

Two teams of astronomers—Batygin and Brown, as well as Trujillo and Sheppard—are undertaking this search together, and both teams expect the search to take up to five years

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If Planet Nine is observed, the International Astronomical Union will certify a name, with priority usually given to a name proposed by its discoverers. It is likely to be a name chosen from Roman or Greek mythology

In their original article, Batygin and Brown simply referred to the object as “perturber”, and only in later press releases did they use “Planet Nine”. Brown has stated: “We actually call it Phattie when we’re just talking to each other

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In 2018, planetary scientist Alan Stern objected to the name Planet Nine, saying, "It is an effort to erase Clyde Tombaugh's legacy and it's frankly insulting", suggesting the name Planet X until its discovery

According to Brown, “‘Planet X’ is not a generic reference to some unknown planet, but a specific prediction of Lowell’s which led to the (accidental) discovery of Pluto.” According to him, prediction of Planet Nine is not related to it

Clyde Tombaugh: Discoverer of Pluto

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