The Ninth Planetor also Planet X is a hypothetical celestial body orbiting our Sun. It is supposed to be located far beyond the orbit of Neptune in the Kuiper Belt region – a huge region where hundreds of thousands of rocks and ice fragments are located.
In previous studies it was noticed that some asteroids have a disturbed trajectory. These anomalies are supposed to suggest the existence of a large celestial body that gravitationally changes the orbits of smaller objects.
One of the earlier computer models, created by Patrick Lykawek and Tadashi Mukai of Kobe University, suggested that a planet with a mass of 30-70 percent of Earth’s could orbit at a distance of 100-170 AU from the Sun. According to calculations, this object would have a diameter of 10-15 thousand km and would orbit our star in 1000-2500 years.
In turn, Konstantin Batygin and Michael E. Browon in their research found that there are theoretical premises for the existence of a planet with a mass of about 10 Earth masses. Its presence would be consistent with the so-called the Nice modelwhich describes the migration of massive planets in space. In this concept, the planet would be as far away from the Sun as 600 AU – it would also have a very elliptical orbit, thanks to which it could get as close to the Sun as 200 AU. A year on this planet would last 10-20 thousand years.
According to some, Planet Nine is supposed to be connected to the devastating changes taking place on Earth, or to be the base of an alien civilization, or even a large alien spaceship. However, these stories already belong to science fiction stories.
According to recent research, it is not Planet Nine that is disturbing the asteroids. In fact, there may be no mysterious object there at all. Astronomers suggest that In the early stages of the formation of the Solar System, a stray star passed by very close by..
It was this one that was supposed to disturb the orbits of asteroids for billions of years to come. Kuiper beltIts flyby was also supposed to result in some of the larger objects in the inner part of the planetary system being “knocked out” of their original orbits.
The gravity of the mysterious star was supposed to be strong enough to throw these objects into the further reaches of the System, where they were captured by gas giants (Jupiter or Saturn) and became their moons. Researchers estimate that up to 7.2 percent of the objects could have been thrown out of their original orbits.
As astrophysicist Amith Govind from Forschungszentrum Jülich says: – The best match for today’s outer Solar System that we found with our simulations is a star that was slightly lighter than our Sun – was about 0.8 solar masses.
He added: “The star flew past our sun at a distance of about 16.5 billion kilometres. That’s about 110 times the distance between Earth and the sun, a little less than four times the distance of the outermost planet, Neptune.”
The research results were published in a scientific journal Nature Astronomy and The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Source: geekweek.interia.pl
