Scientists just found more evidence that Planet 9 exists

[senona]

UPDATE:  



Mysterious Planet Nine may have given our solar system its bizarre tilt

The tilt of planet orbits could be explained by the tug of a Neptune-sized world

The curious tilt of our solar system could be explained by the gravitational pull of Planet Nine – an elusive Neptune-sized world thought to orbit far beyond Pluto.

That is the conclusion of two independent scientific papers published this week, adding circumstantial evidence for the existence of the mysterious planet and helping to close in on its likely location.

The major planets, except Mercury, all orbit the Sun in pretty much the same plane, varying by only about two or three degrees from the plane of Earth's orbit. However, that plane is tilted by about six degrees from the Sun's equator, suggesting that either the Sun has been knocked sideways or the planets have been pulled from their original alignment.

Scientists from Caltech report that this longstanding puzzle could be answered by the gravitational pull of a distant planet, with a mass five to 20 times that of Earth, in an eccentric and inclined orbit.

Not only can today's solar system be explained by such a planet, they say, but it is hard to see any other way it can be.
Various theories for the existence, size, and location of Planet Nine have been put forward over the past decade, prompted by observations of distant objects in the Kuiper Belt.

The orbit of minor planet Sedna, and of hundreds of trans-Neptunian objects, defy mathematical predictions unless a substantial, but so far, invisible object is affecting them.

The current best guess for Planet Nine is that it has a mass of about ten Earths, with a very elliptical and inclined orbit lasting about 15,000 years.

There is also a Brazilian team of astronomers that used a different analytical method to reach a similar conclusion – and believes its calculations can help pinpoint the elusive object.

Rodney Gomes of the Brazilian Observatorio Nacional said his team's calculations give an "elegant explanation for the current tilt between the invariant plane of the inner giant planets and the solar equator, and add new constraints to the orbital elements of Planet Nine".

The Gomes team reports that its findings are compatible with the work of Caltech researchers Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown who are considered the pioneers of the hunt for Planet Nine and co-authors on the Bailey paper.