Scientists Complete Two-Year Project to Discover Mysterious Ninth Planet

The search has narrowed.

An international team of astronomers has completed a two-year project to find the hypothetical Ninth Planet. Although they were unable to detect it, scientists can now narrow down the search area.

Researchers analyzed data on anomalies in the movement of trans-Neptunian objects and the interstellar meteoroid CNEOS14, which burned up in Earth's atmosphere in 2014. It was traveling towards us at a speed of 45 km/s, which experts believe is too fast for similar objects in the Solar System.

They suggested that the Ninth Planet could have influenced this. The trajectory calculation of the meteoroid allowed them to determine the predicted area of its location.

From 2022 to 2023, astronomers observed this area of 98 square degrees using the JAST|T80 telescope. During this time, 939 candidates for the title of Ninth Planet were identified, but they were eliminated after verification. However, the probability of its existence in the studied part of space remains, although it is only 0.4%.

The issue is that the tools used may have missed very faint objects due to insufficient sensitivity. Expanding the search to fainter stellar magnitudes requires more advanced instruments, which are currently unavailable.

The theory of the Ninth Planet emerged in 2014. It is believed to be located in the outer region of the Solar System beyond Neptune. This idea was prompted by trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) with highly elongated and inclined orbits, which may indicate the influence of a massive celestial body beyond the known planets.