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Astronomers Find Evidence Of A Massive Object Beyond The Orbit Of Neptune
Something gigantic appears to be stabilizing objects beyond the orbit of Neptune.

JAMES FELTON

A team of researchers say they have found the "strongest statistical evidence yet that Planet 9 is really out there" in the solar system after studying a population of distant, unstable objects that cross Neptune's orbit.

But our discovery of planets within the solar system might not yet be over. In 2015, two astronomers from Caltech presented evidence that six objects past the orbit of Neptune were bunched together in a way that suggested they were being "herded" by something with a large gravitational pull. Despite suggestions the planet could be due to a statistical anomaly and selection bias, the team believes the objects could be moving due to the influence of a large object beyond Neptune's orbit.

In a new paper, the team looked at long-period objects that crossed the path of Neptune's orbit, finding that their closest point of orbit to the sun was around 15-30 astronomical units (AU), with one AU being the distance between the sun and the Earth.

Carrying out simulations to try and discover what best explains the orbits of these objects, the team found that a model that includes a massive planet beyond the region of Neptune explained the steady state of these objects much better than in simulations where planet 9 was not included. In the model, the team included other variables, such as the galactic tide and the gravitational influence of passing stars.

Though this is intriguing, the analysis does not narrow down where to look for such a planet. Thankfully, we might not have too long to wait on that front.

"Excitingly, the dynamics described here, along with all other lines of evidence for Planet 9, will soon face a rigorous test with the operational commencement of the Vera Rubin Observatory," the team concluded. "This upcoming phase of exploration promises to provide critical insights into the mysteries of our solar system’s outer reaches."

The paper is posted on the pre-print server arXiv and has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

https://www.iflscience.com/astronomers-f...f-neptune-73914

Preprint: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2404.11594.pdf

Zitat
"Generation of Low-Inclination, Neptune-Crossing TNOs by Planet Nine"
Konstantin Batygin, Alessandro Morbidelli, Michael E. Brown, and David Nesvorny´

ABSTRACT
The solar system’s distant reaches exhibit a wealth of anomalous dynamical structure, hinting at the presence of a yet-undetected, massive trans-Neptunian body — Planet 9. Previous analyses have shown how orbital evolution induced by this object can explain the origins of a broad assortment of exotic orbits, ranging from those characterized by high perihelia to those with extreme inclinations. In this work, we shift the focus toward a more conventional class of TNOs, and consider the observed census of long-period, nearly planar, Neptune-crossing objects as a hitherto-unexplored probe of the Planet 9 hypothesis. To this end, we carry out comprehensive N−body simulations that self-consistently model gravitational perturbations from all giant planets, the Galactic tide, as well as passing stars, stemming from initial conditions that account for the primordial giant planet migration and sun’s early evolution within a star cluster. Accounting for observational biases, our results reveal that the orbital architecture of this group of objects aligns closely with the predictions of the P9-inclusive model. In stark contrast, the P9-free scenario is statistically rejected at a ∼ 5 σ confidence-level. Accordingly, this work introduces a new line of evidence supporting the existence of Planet 9 and further delineates a series of observational predictions poised for near-term resolution.

Keywords: Solar system evolution (2293), Trans-Neptunian objects(1705), Orbits(1184)