00:00Attention, Earthlings! Yes, that would include you!
00:04Scientists have discovered a new member of the solar system.
00:07We officially have a new dwarf planet orbiting well beyond Neptune.
00:11But that's not all. Despite being small and unremarkable,
00:15this object, called 2017 OF201, I know it's a goofy name,
00:21might hold the key information about the speculated existence of Planet 9.
00:25Or, better said, it spoils the fun because instead of helping us find Planet 9,
00:31it could be the first tangible evidence that the theoretical 9th major planet was just that, a theory.
00:39But first, what exactly are dwarf planets? And why is this discovery so important?
00:45Well, in the early 21st century, researchers gained better telescopes
00:49and began discovering smaller, weirder celestial objects.
00:53It started with Eris in 2003, but the discovery of additional similar bodies
00:58led to Pluto losing its status as a, quote, true planet.
01:03To proudly carry the name of a planet, a space rock must check off three boxes.
01:08It must orbit the Sun, not another planet, like a Moon would.
01:12It must be massive enough for its gravity to make it round.
01:16And it needs to be gravitationally dominant in its orbit.
01:19In other words, an object should be able to clear out most other objects in its path
01:24by absorbing them, slinging them away, or influencing them in some other way.
01:30Like paying them off.
01:31Hey, just kidding.
01:33Imagine a giant, powerful truck driving in its own lane, pushing smaller cars aside.
01:38Hey, sounds like my commute.
01:40Although Pluto is orbiting the Sun and has the needed elliptical appearance,
01:44it's in the Kuiper Belt, a region full of icy objects.
01:49Because it can't clear its orbit, researchers realized that Pluto was not that different
01:54from many other similar bodies known as trans-Neptunian objects or TNOs.
02:00There are well over 5,000 known TNOs out there, with only 1,000 being officially numbered.
02:05Meaning they've been studied enough to have their orbits confirmed.
02:09Now here's where it gets interesting.
02:11A while ago, scientists noted a pattern.
02:14Many of these minor planets shared similar paths and tilts.
02:18This inspired a theory that those objects were influenced by some still undiscovered Planet 9,
02:24also known as Planet X.
02:26The proposed super-Earth would have a mass 5 to 10 times greater than Earth's.
02:31It would orbit far on the outskirts, possibly as far as 500 astronomical units,
02:37and like an invisible puppeteer, manipulate the orbits of TNOs with its gravity.
02:42Some of these objects get classified as extreme trans-Neptunian objects.
02:47Let's just call them ETNOs for short.
02:50ETNOs are minor planets with an average distance of at least 150 astronomical units from the Sun.
02:58They have eccentric orbits, which can't be explained by the gravity of Neptune, Uranus, Saturn, or Jupiter.
03:04This led some scientists to conclude that Planet X must be out there.
03:09As the years went by and more and more TNOs were discovered,
03:14scientists began to notice that those newly found objects didn't follow the previously established patterns.
03:20Many TNOs and ETNOs discovered in the last 5 to 6 years didn't match the same orbital parameters.
03:28Of the 6,000 objects found orbiting beyond 30 AU from the Sun,
03:32many show no signs of being influenced by a hidden planet.
03:37Well, despite that, scientists still hesitate to admit that Planet X is just wishful thinking.
03:42Not only is discovering something new exciting, but a planet like that could also protect us by pulling in asteroids from deep space.
03:51It could help explain why our solar system looks so different from many others,
03:56where super-Earths and mini-Neptunes are common.
03:59It might even solve how the solar system was formed, how objects got scattered, and what's still hiding in the dark.
04:06Discovering Planet 9 wouldn't just be cool.
04:09It could reshape everything we know about the solar system.
04:13However, with the discovery of 2017 OF201,
04:17actually, that's still a mouthful.
04:19Let's call it OFI from now on.
04:21With the discovery of OFI, the whole Planet 9 theory seems to be on its last legs.
04:27So, what makes OFI so special?
04:29And how does it affect the idea behind Planet 9?
04:32The newly discovered member of our solar system is estimated to be about 430 miles in diameter.
04:40This places it in the dwarf planet category,
04:43certainly larger than many other trans-Neptunian objects,
04:46but still about one-third the size of Pluto.
04:49What stands out most is its elongated orbit around the Sun.
04:53It takes at least 25,000 years to complete one revolution.
04:57Its orbit brings it as close as about 45 astronomical units from the Sun,
05:03which is similar to Pluto's distance,
05:05and extends out as far as 1600 AU at its most distant point.
05:10This means it travels far beyond the Kuiper belt
05:13and approaches the inner boundary of the Oort cloud.
05:17This orbit is not just extremely long,
05:19it's also highly eccentric, stretched out like a long oval.
05:23This puts it in a rare group of objects that travel to the most distant parts of our solar system.
05:29While there are objects with longer orbital periods,
05:32like comets that originate from the Oort cloud,
05:35they're much smaller than this newly discovered dwarf planet.
05:39But despite its relatively large size for such a distant object,
05:43ORPHA is nearly undetectable.
05:45It spends most of its time hidden from Earth's view,
05:48far from the inner solar system and too faint for current telescopes to spot.
05:53In fact, astronomers estimate it's only visible for about 1% of its 25,000-year orbit.
06:00In fact, this new dwarf planet came closest to the Sun in 1930,
06:05the same year Pluto was discovered.
06:07Yet, it slipped away unnoticed.
06:10Nobody spotted it back then,
06:12and it only got discovered in May 2025 completely by accident.
06:16By digging through archived data from publicly available telescopes,
06:21researchers pieced together its location from 19 separate images taken over 7 years.
06:27That's impressive detective work.
06:29So, what does all of this mean for Planet X?
06:33The archived photos have revealed that this object's orbit
06:36does not match any of the orbital clustering
06:39previously used to support the Planet 9 hypothesis.
06:42It doesn't belong to the same group as other ETNOs.
06:46And, more importantly,
06:47if a hidden planet is really tugging on celestial bodies,
06:51Orphe should have been flung out of the solar system millions of years ago.
06:55If Planet 9 was where we speculated and had the predicted mass,
07:00then Orphe's current orbit wouldn't last.
07:02It would likely be altered or even destroyed within about 100 million years.
07:07However, its orbit appears stable and undisturbed,
07:11suggesting it has been like this for far longer.
07:15But wait! you exclaim.
07:17If the mysterious orbit of Orphe is not caused by an invisible giant planet,
07:21what else could it be?
07:23Well, space is full of surprises,
07:25and gravity isn't exclusive to planets.
07:29One idea is that the orbit has been stretched over time by galactic tides.
07:33Just like the Moon pulls on Earth's oceans,
07:36the Milky Way galaxy itself pulls ever so gently on everything in the solar system.
07:42It's a slow, steady force.
07:44But if you're far out enough, like Orphe is,
07:47even that gentle tug can twist your orbit over millions of years.
07:51Now, another possible explanation
07:54could be that a passing star may have come to our solar system a long time ago,
08:00especially during its formation.
08:02Back when the Sun was young and surrounded by newborn stars,
08:05one could have passed close enough to give some outer objects a gravitational nudge.
08:11That kind of flyby could have easily yanked an icy object into a stretched-out, tilted orbit.
08:17The third idea is that such unusual orbits are leftovers from the early solar system,
08:23when planets and debris were being flung all over the place.
08:26Some may have ended up in stable but extreme orbits, like Ophi, the dwarf planet.
08:31If something really is pulling on these distant objects from outside our solar system,
08:37something like the galaxy itself,
08:39then we lack models to explain it.
08:42It's remarkable that we've managed to spot Ophi in the first place.
08:45These objects only appear when close to the Sun,
08:48so we've likely seen just a fraction of what's out there.
08:51There could be hundreds or even thousands of similar rocks,
08:55all with strange orbits and mysterious origins.
08:58Which means the real mystery might not be a hidden planet,
09:03but the hidden world of space rocks quietly orbiting in the dark, waiting to be found.
09:09That's it for today.
09:10So hey, if you pacified your curiosity,
09:12then give the video a like and share it with your friends.
09:15Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the bright side.
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