00:00does our solar system have nine planets or only eight astronomers have gone back and forth on
00:08that a lot with Pluto now being classified as a dwarf planet however out beyond Neptune there
00:14could be another elusive object orbiting the Sun and experts say they've found the strongest
00:18statistical evidence yet of its existence orbiters in the distant reaches of our system are called
00:24trans-Neptunian objects Pluto is amongst them many are often overlooked by astronomers because
00:29of Neptune's mass and its gravitational impact on the objects around it Neptune's mass impacts
00:34other nearby objects making their orbits unstable and difficult to interpret because of this a lot
00:40of data is overlooked as it's too difficult to say for sure what's going on but a new study has
00:44used computer simulations to suss it out with the researchers writing in their paper quote
00:49accounting for observational biases our results reveal that the orbital architecture of this
00:54group of objects aligns closely with the predictions of the p9 inclusive model with
00:59researchers adding that the movements of these trans-Neptunian objects would be extremely unlikely
01:03without a ninth planet orbiting out there still direct observations will need to be made and that
01:08could be a long way off as the hypothetical planet would be around 500 times the distance of the earth to
01:14the sun
01:14the sun
Comments