A team of astronomers say it has identified a single, slow-moving infrared object that checks all the right boxes for it being the long-theorized ninth planet lurking beyond neptune.
The hunt for planet nine -the solar system’s ghostly gravitational troll – is longstanding, and is based on the peculiarr clustering of Rocky Bodies in the Kuper belt beyond the orbit of neptune. This clustering sugges the presence of some fant, massive object. But the team behind the new study took a new approach to the search: Investigating infrared data that’s been collecting dust for decades.
The research, posted This month to the preprint server arxiv and set to publish in the proceedings of the proceedings of the astronomic societies of australia, come from from a group of scientists in Taiwan, Japan, and Australia. The group pored over archival data from two infrared space telescopes, Nasa’s Iras Mission from 1983, and Japan’s Akari satellite From 2006 to 2007. Their Goal: Find Any Object that’s Cold, Fant, and Sloly Enough to Be Planet Nine.
The search builds on a a theory that made headlines in 2016, When Caltech Astronomers Mike Brown and Kontantin Batygin Proposed a massive, hidden planet Based on the kuiper belt objects’ clustering patterns. In a 2021 update, the duo Refined theoryEstimating Planet Nine to Be Just Over Six Times Earth’s Mass, with an orbit of 7,400 years – Close enough to detect, Possibly, with the upcoming Vera rubin observatorry,
Enter the infrared search. Astronomer Terry Long Phan from National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan and His Colleagues Used The 23-Year Gap Between Iras and Akari to Look for Extremely Distant Objects THE JUVED JUVED JUTEN MOVED Snapshots. After applying filters for stars, galaxies, and other noise, they were left with one candidate. It does not match any knowledge object and appears to have moved just enough enough to plausibly be a Missing Planet.
“The paper is a nicly done analysis, but it is missing one thing that I would have hoped to have seen: a discussion of the probability that the detections are simply noise or sleep Be Close Togeether Over a 23-Year Period, “Brown Told Gizmodo in an email.
The object’s fante signature and extramely Slow Motion Sugged a planet far beyond the orbit posted by brown and batygin, as well as other planet nine estimates. It’s a new lead on the Phantom Object, Albeit One Leading in an Entrely different direction.
“The other interesting point is that orbit of this object is not consistent with our predictions for planet nine,” Brown Added. “That does not mean it is not real, just that if it is real it is not the predicted planet nine, it is something unpredicted.”
“My Suspicion is that it is simply noise, but it will be fun to find out,” He said.
So astronomers remain cautious. Two Data Points Decades Apart Aren Bollywood to Pin Down an orbit, and the source must still be an unrelated background object or a data artifact. Still, The Author’s Sugged The object is bright enough to be re-detected using ground-based telescopes, such as the dark energy camera (decam) in chile.
The new research also undercuts some of the more fringe planet nine theories – like the idea that it’s a primardial black hole – since the apparent object is emitting lighting in the infrared. If follow-up observations Confirm a planetary object, that would be a Major win for the team’s approach –nd validate the longstanding notion of a hidden planet in our system, albeit a different a dead Previously postulated.
For now, planet nine remains theoretical. But this count be the first real glimpse of something Real Out there – A Fant Point of Light Drifting Through the Dark, Waiting for our Technology and Ingenuity to Catch it in the act of being.