The ninth planet may be an alien intruder

The ninth planet may be an alien intruder

New dynamic calculations show that the mysterious invisible world may turn out to be an interstellar scam captured by the solar system.

The hypothetical world is believed to rotate at the extreme distance from the Sun and has some evidence of its existence, which we can observe. But it is not so easy because of its remoteness and dullness.

When orbiting 1000 a. e. From the Sun (1 astronomical unit - the average distance of the Earth’s rotation around the Sun) a question arises about its formation - it had to develop much closer to the star, and then migrate away due to gravity. Such an extreme orbit led to other ideas, including the hypothesis that it is an intruder, captured by an “outcast” or an orphaned planet, which the Solar System adopted.

At the 229th meeting of the American Astronomical Society, researchers from the State University of New Mexico (NMSU) presented the results of simulating planetary rogue states trapped in solar gravity. It is believed that the solar space is densely populated with orphaned worlds. These are mainly objects that have been thrown out of the parent star systems. Sometimes their movement intersects with the route of another system, and then there are two options: either the planet moves away, or the star attracts it.

Could this happen in our system? Has the Ninth Planet come from another star? After creating 156 collision models of the Solar System with interstellar outcasts, NMSU student James Vesper and Professor Paul Mason discovered an amazing number of situations in which the planet was captured and settled in a stable orbit.

According to their results, 60% of the collisions lead to the fact that they are discarded and even capture other planets with them. This is reminiscent of billiards, in which you hit other balls when struck. But the situation is not always so sharp. The mere gravitational appearance of a new planet can lead to all types of dynamic instability.

The remaining 40% led to the careful capture and integration of the world, as long as the uninvited guest was less than the mass of Neptune (17 times larger than the earth), and its orbit was wide. From the observations of Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown from the California Institute of Technology it turns out that the Ninth Planet must have a mass 9 times more than the Earth, but less than Neptune.

Before confirming the abduction, you need to find evidence. Astronomers diligently remove specific places in the sky that could be home to a large and undiscovered planet of the solar system. Experts believe that 2017 can be a turning point when they reveal the secret of the Ninth Planet.

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