He may have received widespread criticism for denouncing Pluto as a planet back in 2005, but one of the world’s leading scientists now says there is a ninth planet in the solar system after all.
The world renowned scientist Mike Brown, who infamously denounced Pluto as a planet over 10 years ago now says he and his colleague Konstantin Batygin may have found a new planet that is about 10 times the mass of Earth and has an atmosphere of hydrogen and helium. The two CalTech scientists say in Science magazine that the mysterious code named “Planet X” moves in a distant orbit which is beyond Neptune.
Although the leading astronomer’s haven’t yet been able to observe the new planet ‘Planet X’, they do believe it does exist due to the unique configuration of six objects when they come closest to the sun. The two scientists along with their respective teams say that there’s a 0.007% probability that the configuration is due to chance, but they remain confident it is indeed a ninth planet. The pair also believe they will observe the planet with a telescope within five years.
Where did this planet come from? Well leading Scientists say that there could be a missing planet in our solar system, with the relative theory being that a collision caused it to be ejected out of our system over 4 billion years ago, after a collision with Jupiter.
An excited Batygin told The Astronomical Journal: “Although we were initially quite skeptical that this planet could exist, as we continued to investigate its orbit and what it would mean for the outer solar system, we become increasingly convinced that it is out there,” “There is solid evidence that the solar system’s planetary census is incomplete.”