- 1 day ago
Astronomers may have finally uncovered new Planet 9 evidence — a massive, unseen world lurking far beyond Neptune. The planet was detected in two infrared sky surveys taken 23 years apart, where a faint moving dot shifted just enough to suggest something extraordinary. If confirmed, it could be larger than Neptune and orbit the Sun at a distance 700 times greater than Earth.
In this video, we explore the full story behind this solar system mystery — how scientists connected decades of sky data, what makes Planet 9 so controversial, and why it could redefine our understanding of the outer solar system. Stay tuned as we break down what astronomers believe might be the most important space discovery of the decade. Credit:
Planet Nine: by nagualdesign CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Planet_Nine_animation.ogv
Infrared Astronomical Satellite Launches: by NASA/JPL https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Infrared_Astronomical_Satellite_Launches.webm
Seeking Infrared Light: by Sophia Roberts, Michael McClare, Robert Andreoli, John Caldwell / NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center https://images.nasa.gov/details/Seeking_Infrared_Light_H264
WFIRST's Wide Field Instrument: by Scott Wiessinger, Claire Saravia, Krystofer Kim, Ashley Balzer / NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center https://images.nasa.gov/details/GSFC_20190626_WFIRST_m13235_WideField_60
The Little Satellite: by Matthew R. Radcliff, Kasha Patel / NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center https://images.nasa.gov/details/GSFC_20170330_EO1_m12559_Decommission
Fornax Galaxy Cluster: by NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA https://images.nasa.gov/details/PIA12835
History of our Solar System: by NASA https://images.nasa.gov/details/298_MU69
B-Roll 9: by Matthew R. Radcliff, Jane Peterson, Jefferson Beck, Ellen T. Gray / NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center https://images.nasa.gov/details/GSFC_20160913_ORACLES_m12372_broll09
Orion Big Head: by NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA https://images.nasa.gov/details/PIA14040
KSC-06-S-00125: by NASA or National Aeronautics and Space Administration https://images.nasa.gov/details/van_042806_cc_calsep
NASA Student Airborne Research: by NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center https://images.nasa.gov/details/AFRC-2023-14011-01
Gravitational and Space Research: by NASA Glenn Research Center's Imaging Technology Center https://images.nasa.gov/details/GRC-2022-CM-0101.2
Animation is created by Bright Side.
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Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV
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This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.
In this video, we explore the full story behind this solar system mystery — how scientists connected decades of sky data, what makes Planet 9 so controversial, and why it could redefine our understanding of the outer solar system. Stay tuned as we break down what astronomers believe might be the most important space discovery of the decade. Credit:
Planet Nine: by nagualdesign CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Planet_Nine_animation.ogv
Infrared Astronomical Satellite Launches: by NASA/JPL https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Infrared_Astronomical_Satellite_Launches.webm
Seeking Infrared Light: by Sophia Roberts, Michael McClare, Robert Andreoli, John Caldwell / NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center https://images.nasa.gov/details/Seeking_Infrared_Light_H264
WFIRST's Wide Field Instrument: by Scott Wiessinger, Claire Saravia, Krystofer Kim, Ashley Balzer / NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center https://images.nasa.gov/details/GSFC_20190626_WFIRST_m13235_WideField_60
The Little Satellite: by Matthew R. Radcliff, Kasha Patel / NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center https://images.nasa.gov/details/GSFC_20170330_EO1_m12559_Decommission
Fornax Galaxy Cluster: by NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA https://images.nasa.gov/details/PIA12835
History of our Solar System: by NASA https://images.nasa.gov/details/298_MU69
B-Roll 9: by Matthew R. Radcliff, Jane Peterson, Jefferson Beck, Ellen T. Gray / NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center https://images.nasa.gov/details/GSFC_20160913_ORACLES_m12372_broll09
Orion Big Head: by NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA https://images.nasa.gov/details/PIA14040
KSC-06-S-00125: by NASA or National Aeronautics and Space Administration https://images.nasa.gov/details/van_042806_cc_calsep
NASA Student Airborne Research: by NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center https://images.nasa.gov/details/AFRC-2023-14011-01
Gravitational and Space Research: by NASA Glenn Research Center's Imaging Technology Center https://images.nasa.gov/details/GRC-2022-CM-0101.2
Animation is created by Bright Side.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/
Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV
Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Our Social Media:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brightplanet/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brightside.official
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brightside.official?lang=en
Stock materials (photos, footages and other):
https://www.depositphotos.com
https://www.shutterstock.com
https://www.eastnews.ru
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For more videos and articles visit: http://www.brightside.me
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.
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FunTranscript
00:00Now, if Earth were the size of a nickel, Neptune would be about as big as a baseball.
00:06That's impressive, but it's nothing compared to the giant ninth planet that might be hiding out there.
00:12Now, our Planet 9's discovery saga might have finally come to an end.
00:16Turns out, the problem wasn't where we were looking, but how.
00:20And researchers might have just made the biggest solar system discovery in decades.
00:25You see, the idea of finding a planet beyond Neptune has been around for years now.
00:30I know, back in school, you probably learned that the ninth planet was Pluto.
00:35But forget about Pluto, it's been demoted to a less fancy category since 2006.
00:41What I'm talking about is the Planet 9.
00:44A hypothetical giant planet that could be our cosmic neighbor.
00:48We've never actually seen it, but scientists are pretty sure it's out there somewhere,
00:53hiding in the outer solar system.
00:56To explain why they think that, we need a sheet of paper.
00:59Hey, here's one.
01:00We place a coin on it, and suddenly, it starts to move.
01:04Unless we're talking about some kind of superpower,
01:07there's no way this coin is moving on its own, right?
01:10So, you figure someone must be on the other side, holding a magnet and moving it around.
01:16You can't see the magnet, but it explains why the coin is moving.
01:20That's kind of what's happening with Planet 9.
01:23We can't see it, we can't prove it, yet.
01:26But its existence could explain the strange movements we see out there in space.
01:31For example, the planets in our solar system orbit on a flat plane
01:35that's tilted about 6 degrees relative to the sun.
01:39But why 6 degrees?
01:41Well, no one really knows for sure.
01:43Some scientists think those orbits might be slightly tilted
01:46because of the pull of a ninth planet.
01:48Its existence could also explain the unusual paths of smaller objects in the distant Kuiper Belt,
01:55a region full of icy debris that stretches far beyond Neptune's orbit.
02:00Back in 2016, researchers from Caltech published a study about Planet 9.
02:06They suggested it could have a mass about 10 times that of Earth and follow a highly elongated path.
02:12It's a scientific way of saying it takes forever to make one trip around the sun.
02:17Because of that, it would be located in the outer solar system.
02:21I mean, far, far away.
02:23It would orbit the sun about 20 to 30 times farther out than our most distant planet, Neptune.
02:30According to scientists, Planet 9 would take up to 20,000 Earth years
02:34to complete just one full orbit around the sun.
02:37Since it's crazy far out there, it's almost impossible to see it.
02:41So, as cool as this hypothesis sounds,
02:44we've never found solid evidence that Planet 9 actually exists.
02:49But we might be pretty close.
02:51In May 2025, a team at National Tsinghua University
02:55might have made one of the most exciting solar system discoveries ever.
03:00Alright, so there's a hypothesis that Planet 9 hasn't been discovered yet
03:04because we haven't been using the right method.
03:07This new study raises an interesting question.
03:11What if Planet 9 actually looks brighter in infrared light than it does in visible light?
03:16Let me explain.
03:17Scientists have been trying to spot Planet 9 by its reflected light.
03:21But here's the problem.
03:23The spotted invisible wavelengths,
03:25sunlight would have to travel all the way out to Planet 9,
03:29bounce off its surface,
03:30and then travel all the way back to Earth.
03:32If a Neptune-sized planet were about 10 times farther away than Neptune,
03:37it would look about 10,000 times fainter.
03:40But a planet's own thermal radiation,
03:42I mean, its heat,
03:43only has to make a one-way trip.
03:46So, in infrared light,
03:47Planet 9 would only be about 100 times fainter.
03:51That's why it makes more sense to look for it
03:53using space-based infrared telescopes.
03:56And that's the idea behind this new study.
03:58The team started digging through archives,
04:01searching for old infrared sky survey data.
04:04And they pulled it from two main sources.
04:06First, IRIS,
04:08a satellite launched in the 80s that scanned the sky for almost a year.
04:12Then, the Japanese satellite Akari,
04:14another infrared observatory that operated between 2006 and 2011.
04:19So, basically, they compared objects that showed up in IRIS database
04:24and noticed which ones had moved by the time Akari took its observations.
04:29And by doing that,
04:30the researchers found something incredible.
04:33An object that might just be our long-lost ninth planet.
04:37Because if something moves,
04:39it could be a planet orbiting the Sun, right?
04:42And yeah,
04:42they did find some celestial objects showing tiny movements.
04:46But before jumping to conclusions,
04:48they had to rule out the parallax effect.
04:51And that's something really important
04:52when we're talking about solar system discoveries.
04:55To explain it,
04:56I need you to do something.
04:58Hold one finger in front of your face.
05:00Close one eye.
05:02And now switch.
05:03Your finger seems to move a tiny bit, right?
05:05That's because you're looking at it from a slightly different angle,
05:09from one eyeball to the other.
05:11The same thing happens when we look out into space from Earth.
05:14Since our planet orbits the Sun,
05:17our view of very distant objects shifts just a little.
05:21That effect is called parallax.
05:23My point is,
05:24because of this effect,
05:25planet 9 would appear to move across the sky
05:28as Earth goes around the Sun.
05:30On any given day,
05:31it might seem to be in one spot.
05:33But six months later,
05:35when Earth is on the opposite side of the Sun,
05:37it would look like it shifted.
05:39Six months after that,
05:41it would seem to move back again.
05:42Scientists had to account for parallax.
05:45Actually,
05:46they had to remove its effects.
05:48So the team looked at images of the sky
05:50taken on the same date every year.
05:53Because on that same date,
05:54Earth is always in the same spot in its orbit.
05:57That means if planet 9 is real,
06:00it would show up in the same place in those images every year.
06:03No fake wiggle from parallax,
06:05just its real position.
06:07This careful search led them to a single object,
06:11a tiny dot in the infrared data.
06:13This strange little spot
06:15had moved slightly along its orbit around the Sun
06:18over the 23 years between Iris and a carry.
06:21Wait, could that be it?
06:23Did astronomers just confirm a hidden planet?
06:26Well, maybe.
06:28But don't get too excited.
06:30The data we have on its motion over that time
06:32is not enough to figure out its full orbit.
06:36So, for now,
06:37we still can't say for sure
06:39if this mysterious object is really planet 9.
06:42It's definitely a strong candidate, though.
06:45Based on how bright the object appears,
06:47the team estimates it could be pretty massive.
06:50And that came as a big surprise.
06:53You see,
06:53previous NASA research ruled out
06:55any Jupiter-sized or Saturn-sized planets
06:58hiding out there.
06:59But a smaller world would have gone undetected.
07:02So, the scientists were looking for something
07:04just a bit bigger than Earth.
07:06But it turns out,
07:07this mysterious planet
07:08might be more massive than Neptune.
07:11Now that they've discovered planet 9,
07:13supposedly, at least,
07:14the plan is to keep tracking it
07:16and collecting new data.
07:18But don't think the road ahead will be easy.
07:21Because since the Acheri satellite
07:22spotted it for the first time,
07:24that object didn't just sit still.
07:26It's been moving slowly through space ever since.
07:29So now,
07:30scientists need to use regular telescopes on Earth
07:33to look for it again.
07:34And here's the tricky part.
07:36They're not exactly sure where it moved to.
07:39So they have to search a pretty big patch of the sky.
07:42And so far,
07:43no matching object has been found.
07:46Whether this really turns out to be
07:47the Planet 9 discovery or not,
07:50only time will tell.
07:51For now,
07:52its existence is still up for debate.
07:54But with powerful new technology on the way,
07:57like NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope,
08:00astronomers are more determined than ever
08:02to uncover the truth.
08:04And if Planet 9 really is out there,
08:07hiding in the cold, dark edges of our solar system,
08:10it's running out of places to hide.
08:13That's it for today.
08:14So hey,
08:15if you pacified your curiosity,
08:17then give the video a like
08:18and share it with your friends.
08:19Or if you want more,
08:20just click on these videos
08:21and stay on the bright side!
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