Planet 9 could be found in 16 months

A team of astronomers believes they can identify a mysterious ninth planet on the outer edge of the solar system in about 16 months.

The ninth planet on the outer edge of the solar system could be 10 times more massive than Earth. Photo: Caltech.

Astronomer Mike Brown of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) said that traces of a ninth planet could be found within 16 months or so at a recent conference in Pasadena, California, according to Space. This is a joint meeting of the American Astronomical Society's Division of Planetary Sciences (DPS) and the European Planetary Science Council (EPSC).

According to Brown, about 8-10 research groups around the world are searching for a ninth planet. "I'm sure by the end of next winter, someone will find a ninth planet," Brown said. "At the next meeting between DPS and EPSC, we will discuss the discovery of a ninth planet rather than the method of finding it."

The existence of Planet Nine was first proposed in 2014 by astronomers Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington DC and Chadwick Trujillo of the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii.

Sheppard and Trujillo noticedorbit ofThe dwarf planet Sedna, the celestial body 2012 VP113, and several other celestial bodies beyond Pluto share strange characteristics. It is likely that their movements through space are influenced by a giant, yet undiscovered object in the same region.

Researchers believe the hypothetical planet is 2-15 times larger than Earth and is located hundreds of astronomical units (AU) from the Sun. An astronomical unit is the distance between Earth and the Sun, which is about 150 million kilometers.

Sheppard’s team’s hypothesis was further strengthened when Brown and his Caltech colleague Konstantin Batygin found evidence of the hypothetical planet’s impact on the orbits of another group of objects in the Kuiper Belt. According to Brown and Batygin’s calculations, the “Ninth Planet” could be 10 times more massive than Earth, orbiting in an elliptical orbit with its farthest point from the Sun at about 1,000 AU.

According to VNE