Space & Astronomy

Could Planet Nine explain sun tilt mystery ?

By T.K. Randall
October 25, 2016 ·  19 comments

Is there a giant planet lurking in the outer reaches of the solar system ? Image Credit: NASA Nobody knows exactly where it is, how big it is or if it even exists at all, but when researchers at the California Institute of Technology revealed earlier this year that the existence of a ninth planet in our solar system was a very real possibility, the hunt for this enigmatic new world began in earnest.

Now Mike Brown and Konstantin Batygin, the scientists who originally proposed the planet's existence, have come forward once again to offer up further evidence.

Their findings, which were presented this week at the annual meeting of planetary scientists of the American Astronomical Society, suggest that Planet Nine's enormous size could be causing the solar system to "wobble" and the sun's rotational axis to tilt - a phenomenon that has itself remained a mystery for the better part of two centuries."Because Planet Nine is so massive and has an orbit tilted compared to the other planets, the solar system has no choice but to slowly twist out of alignment," said lead author Elizabeth Bailey.

According to Brown, there is a good chance that Planet Nine will be tracked down and directly observed by telescopes within as little as 16 months.

"I think that there'll be enough people looking for it that... somebody's actually going to track this down," he said. "[At the] next one of these (conferences) we'll be talking about finding Planet Nine instead of just looking for it."

Source: News.com.au | Comments (19)

Tags: Planet Nine, Sun