New Study Deepens Controversy Over Planet Nine’s Existence

Is there a mysterious Planet nine hidden on the outskirts of our solar system? While there have been hypotheses that make such claims, a new study seeks to refute their existence.

Research by astronomers at the University of Pennsylvania strikes at the heart of the clues that led some to believe that such a planet was there. Since 2014, astronomers have been suggesting various explanations for the behavior of so-called “transneptunian objects” (eTNOs) they are further from the sun than Neptune. These rocks in the outer reaches were previously found to be clustered together, traveling in an elongated orbit, as New Scientist reports. One reason for that could be that they were dragged by the gravity of a giant planet that is five to 10 times the mass of Earth. One fascinating idea proposed about such a possible planet is that it may be responsible for the extinction of dinosaurs, as it strikes catastrophic comets toward Earth when it passes through the Kuiper Belt once every 27 million years.

However, new research shows that there may not be any clustering of transneptunian rocks. The scientists used data from the Dark Energy Survey, conducted at a Chilean observatory.

Astronomer at the University of Pennsylvania Pedro Bernardinelli The main author of the article thinks that his data does not bode well for the probability of Planet Nine.

“We would not have formulated the idea for Planet Nine if our data was the only one that existed,” Bernardinelli told New scientist. The scientist’s previous 2020 study, which also uses data from the Dark Energy Survey, found 316 transneptunian objects, including 139 minor planets in space past Neptune. The researcher’s work finally seems to show that the distant region is inhabited by numerous small objects that are evenly distributed rather than grouped.

While scientists write that their data does not “require a” Planet 9 “hypothesis,” they nonetheless admit that “Limited sky coverage and object counts mean, however, that the DES data in no way falsifies this. hypothesis”.

How “The Goblin” Can Unravel the Mystery of Planet Nine

Samantha Lawler, from the University of Regina, Canada, who was not involved in the study, also believes there is still a chance that Planet Nine may still be there. “The way the Planet Nine hypothesis is constructed is that it is completely impossible to falsify it; the only way to demonstrate that it does not exist is to search every square centimeter of the sky and not find it,” he commented to New scientist.

Read the new document now on arXiv.