Recent Searches for Elusive Planet Nine Falls Short

Astronomers have reason to believe that much remains to be discovered outside the solar system — the so-called Planet Nine. Recent searches of the proposed planet have produced a negative result, but the case is far from closed.

The Ninth Planet, if any, makes it an excellent abode to remain invisible. A team of researchers led by Sigurd Naess, a researcher at the Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics at the University of Oslo in Norway, was the latest to try to identify it, using the Atacama Cosmology Telescope in Chile. "No significant findings [found]," they wrote in their new paper, published in the Astrophysical Journal.

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The existence of a ninth planet in our solar system is a possibility, as scientists Konstantin Batygin and Michael Brown argued openly in 2016. Astronomers have the impression of its existence due to the unusual movement of objects in the distant Kuiper Belt. To date, more than 30 of these items have been identified, each showing exaggerated tendencies and behaviors.

To explain this, scientists have requested the existence of something far grander — the proposed Planet Nine. But for that to happen, the planet will have to be big and heavy. Astronomers estimate that the planet is between five and 10 times the size of Earth and is located at a distance of 200 to 800 miles (18.6 billion to 74.5 billion miles) from the Sun. Large objects, or at least large objects, exist on the other side of Neptune — things like Pluto, Eris, Haumea, and Makemake — so this idea is not entirely a banana.

It may seem like we should have seen something so big a long time ago, but our inability to find something is not at all surprising, given the distances involved and the possible obscure state of the planet. When present, the Ninth Planet reflects very little sunlight and emits tiny rays. In a previous study, astronomers failed to identify you with the Wide-field Infrared Explorer, which led to rival ideas trying to explain the mysterious Kuiper Belt, such as a black hole the size of a Bowling ball in the Oort Cloud or a huge rubble ring. in the outer solar system.

For the latest searches, the team used the Atacama Cosmology Telescope, which scans space for millimeter wavelengths. ACT is widely used to study the background radiation of the cosmic microwave produced by the Big Bang, but the sensitivity of the telescope is helpful in this type of needle-in-a-haystack search. Arthur Kosowsky, an astronomer at the University of Pittsburgh who is also a research author, said the ACT is well-suited for the job because of its two distinct characteristics.

"We have enough sensitivity to microwave-wavelength radiation to be able to see the hot springs of Planet Nine, and to see the vast expanse of space where the Ninth Planet might be," he explained in an email. "ACT is the only current trial that meets these two criteria."

The team looked at 98 GHz, 150 GHz, and 229 GHz as they searched for an object at a distance of between 300 and 2,000 au (1 au average distance from Earth to the Sun). At five times larger than Earth, scientists expected to see something between 325 and 625 au, and at 10 times larger than Earth, they expected to see something between 425 and 775 au.

Astronomers have explored 87% of the available space from the southern hemisphere, collecting data from 2013 to 2019. A variety of techniques have been used to process data, including "integration and packaging," a method "that may reveal weak but localized costs of losing local knowledge," according to a media report from the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian.

No one knows where the Ninth Planet sits in the sky if it really exists, but it must be within certain categories to explain its gravitational pull. At the same time, the imaginary planet is moving, and in some ways possible.

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