Next Candidate For Ninth Planet Found At The Edge Of The Solar System

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A research team from Taiwan, Japan and Australia claims to have found direct evidence of a ninth planet at the outermost edge of the solar system. This is the result of a research article that has now become public and has been accepted for publication in a specialist journal. The group found what they were looking for in data from two space telescopes that stopped working 14 and more than 44 years ago respectively. The team searched their infrared images for objects that had moved sufficiently in the night sky between the two missions. And they discovered the candidate.

As the team led by Terry Long Phan from Taiwan's Tsing Hua National University explains, there are 23 years between the two data sets being compared. They were collected by the long-inactive Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS), launched in 1983, and by Akari from Japan in 2006. The search was for objects that had moved slowly in the infrared spectrum between the two surveys. Using their criteria, they found 13 such pairs, one of which remained after a visual inspection – the candidate for Planet 9 that has now been presented. However, the available data is not sufficient to determine the exact orbit of the object. Further observations are needed for this.

However, there is no final verdict on the supposed find. Science also points out that there are astronomers who believe that the unusual orbits of objects behind Neptune could be explained without another planet. However, if there really is a ninth planet far out at the edge of the solar system, we could possibly find it soon. According to the report, Brown and Batygin are convinced that the Vera C. Rubin Observatory with the world's largest digital camera should then be able to detect it. The instrument is due to begin its research work in the middle of the year.