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Still no guarantee that such a planet exists, but the signs seem promising.
H/T Daily Mail Online
Since its discovery at the beginning of this year, the mysterious ‘Planet Nine’ has had scientists looking for the signs that could confirm its existence.
Now, astronomer Mike Brown of Caltech, one of the scientists behind the January announcement, claims he’s found further evidence to support it. The giant hidden planet is thought to sit on the edge of our solar system and is 10 times more massive than the Earth, gaseous, and similar to Uranus or Neptune.
Last week, Mike Brown tweeted a photo that shows the plot of a newly discovered eccentric Kuiper Belt Object (KBO).
In the post, Brown wrote: ‘Hey Planet Nine fans, a new eccentric KBO was discovered. And it is exactly where Planet Nine says it should be.’
The KBO in question is ‘uo3L91,’ shown with a solid blue line in the graph [see report]. Brown writes that the slide comes from a recent talk at the Seti Institute.
This discovery was made from an Outer Solar System Origins Survey (OSSOS) on the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, according to a subsequent tweet.
Planet Nine is oriented oppositely from the other planets, the astronomer explains, so it is off of the graph, and to the right.
‘I haven’t done the statistics yet, but I suspect this takes the probability of this being a statistical fluke down to ~.001% or so,’ Brown tweeted.
While no conclusive evidence of its existence has emerged so far, a number of researchers have undertaken their own studies on the possible planet, which is referred to as Planet Nine or Planet X.
Full report: Scientists say they have more evidence of a NINTH planet in our solar system | Daily Mail Online
[includes graphics and a video]