Does our Solar System have 9 planets or only 8? Astronomers have gone back and forth on that a lot, with Pluto now being classified as a dwarf planet. However, out beyond Neptune there could be another elusive object orbiting the Sun and experts say they have the best evidence we’ve ever found for its existence.
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00:00 [Music]
00:04 Does our solar system have nine planets or only eight?
00:07 Astronomers have gone back and forth on that a lot,
00:09 with Pluto now being classified as a dwarf planet.
00:12 However, out beyond Neptune, there could be another elusive object orbiting the Sun,
00:17 and experts say they've found the strongest statistical evidence yet of its existence.
00:22 Orbiters in the distant reaches of our system are called trans-Neptunian objects.
00:26 Pluto is amongst them.
00:27 Many are often overlooked by astronomers because of Neptune's mass
00:30 and its gravitational impact on the objects around it.
00:33 Neptune's mass impacts other nearby objects,
00:35 making their orbits unstable and difficult to interpret.
00:38 Because of this, a lot of data is overlooked,
00:41 as it's too difficult to say for sure what's going on.
00:43 But a new study has used computer simulations to suss it out,
00:47 with the researchers writing in their paper, quote,
00:49 "Accounting for observational biases,
00:51 our results reveal that the orbital architecture of this group of objects
00:55 aligns closely with the predictions of the P9 inclusive model,"
00:59 with the researchers adding that the movements of these trans-Neptunian objects
01:02 would be extremely unlikely without a ninth planet orbiting out there.
01:06 Still, direct observations will need to be made,
01:08 and that could be a long way off,
01:10 as the hypothetical planet would be around 500 times the distance of the Earth to the Sun.
01:15 [music]