Mysterious Planet Nine hidden behind Neptune might not be a planet at all

Out of Neptune, there is something strange happening in the orbits of a pile of space rocks surrounding the sun. Scientists thought that something could only be described by the presence of a giant planet – the so-called "New Planet".

Astronomers baffled for years and now there is yet another candidate for the cosmic flicker that is not a planet at all.

The existence of Planet Nine is largely inferred from the unusual orbits of trans-Neptunian objects (TNO) that exist in the gaping gap between Neptune and the rest of the cosmos. Some of the NWT share unusual and highly elliptical orbits and are grouped in one direction. It has been suggested that a planet up to four times wider than the Earth was spinning alone at the edge of space in the dark, thus influencing the NWT.

New research published Jan. 21, to be published in the Astronomical Journal, provided an alternative explanation for this strange phenomenon and suggests that clustered orbits may not be the result of a new planet at all. A team from the University of Cambridge and the American University of Beirut believe that a disc of "small icy bodies" with a "mbad combined up to ten times that of the Earth" is responsible for the hoax orbits.

"The Planet Nine hypothesis is fascinating, but if the ninth alleged planet exists, it has not been detected yet," said Antranik Sefilian, co-author of the new research, in a statement. "We wanted to see if there could be another less orange and perhaps more natural cause at the unusual orbits we see in some NWT."

Astronomers have been fascinated by the idea that a giant planet might be outside Neptune, right on the edge of our cosmic neighborhood. This had been badumed for the first time in 2014 because of its gravitational appeal to remote NWTs and as more and more distant objects were discovered, evidence that their orbits had been caused by the super-Earth seemed to accumulate. Even the deviations observed in NASA's Cbadini spacecraft may have suggested its existence.

However, calculating, modeling and simulating the interactions between the TNO and a giant icy disk, Sefilian and Jihad Touma, a professor at the American University of Beirut, propose that if an ice-free debris disc existing beyond Neptune is sufficiently large, it for the eccentric orbits of the TNO previously reported because of its combined gravitational effects.

In both cases – planet or disk – the sad truth is that we can not see either of our place in the solar system. But that means that Planet-Nine's hopes do not have to be out of order, because Sefilian and Touma do not rule out that both the gigantic disk and the super-earth exist together.

"It's also possible that both things are true – there could be a mbadive disk and a ninth planet," said Sefilian.

And this is not the first time that an alternative theory is approached. In June 2018, a group of researchers suggested that the reason for these strange orbits could even be a band of asteroids, trailing in the confines of space, throwing us comets.

So one of the great mysteries of the solar system continues …

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