Potential Evidence Supports Existence of ‘Planet 9’ in Solar System, at a 5-Sigma Confidence Level

A recent study published on arXiv by a team led by Konstantin Batygin from the California Institute of Technology has provided potential new evidence supporting the existence of Planet 9 in the outer regions of our solar system. The team focused on studying the dynamically stable Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs), like Sedna-type objects, while ignoring the unstable ones.

In their study, Batygin and his colleagues observed the motions of long-period objects that cross Neptune’s orbit and exhibit irregular trajectories. These objects are dynamically unstable, and the team explored two possible scenarios to explain their stability: interactions between the galactic tide and Neptune’s gravitational influence, or dynamics induced by the hypothetical Planet 9.

Through detailed calculations and astrophysical simulations, the team found that the scenario involving Planet 9 results in a flat distribution of perihelion distances for the objects crossing Neptune, while the model without Planet 9 shows a distribution peaked around 30 AU. After adjusting for observational bias, the data strongly support the existence of Planet 9 at a 5 sigma level of confidence on a scale of 6 AU. This new evidence provides some of the strongest statistical support yet for the presence of Planet 9 in our solar system.

While researchers like Batygin are hopeful that future observatories such as Vera Rubin will help in locating Planet 9, there is no guarantee of detection. Nonetheless, this recent evidence has bolstered