Astronomers still doubt the existence of the ninth planet of the solar system

The mysterious "planet xx" may not be a gas giant, but small transneptone objects. Scientists who published an article in the Astronomical Journal

then came to the conclusion that Pluto and other icy bodies lying in the Kuiper belt and behind it, on the limits of further away from the solar system, are called transnephthous objects. In recent years, several dozen bodies have been identified, which are distinguished by unusual elongated orbits. The familiar model of the eight-planet solar system does not fit with these anomalies. Therefore, they are often associated with the gravitational influence of the ninth hypothetical planet

According to existing estimates, it should be several times larger than Earth and ten times more massive, performing a complete revolution around of the Sun for 15,000 years. However, observing Planet X had not been possible yet. It is therefore not surprising that not all experts agree with this hypothesis, offering other explanations for orbital anomalies. One of these versions is also mentioned in a new article of the Astronomical Journal

. The authors of the publication, professor at the American University of Beirut, Jihad Touma and Antranik Sefilian of the University of Cambridge, hinted that the same effect could be caused by gravity. a large disk of small icy bodies, turning beyond the orbit of Neptune. Having a mass comparable to that of a possible planet X, such a disc would actually be virtually invisible to modern instruments, while creating anomalies in the movements of nearby objects.

The authors performed the first simulation of orbital dynamics of transnephal objects (TNO), which managed to take into account the attraction of giant planets from the outer regions of the solar system and the gravity in the hypothetical disk icy bodies. "If you remove the ninth planet and replace it with a set of small bodies scattered over a large space, their collective attraction leads to the appearance of the same orbits extended as those we observe in some NWT," Sefilian concludes.

Note that for incentive calculations, the total mass of TNO is only about 0.1-0.2 of the mass of the Earth. Thus, a new hypothesis, expressed by astronomers, deprives us on the one hand of the need to introduce an unidentified planet, but on the other hand – requires and seriously reconsiders our perception of what happens in the most remote areas of the solar system.

Source: Science Nue

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