Planet 9 ‘stolen’ by our Sun
20 Jun 2016 by qmwwwtqmqt.d qmwwwtqmqt.d
Scientists in Sweden have said it’s highly likely that Planet 9 was stolen from the orbit of another sun by our own almost five billion years ago.
Scientists in Sweden have said it’s highly likely that Planet 9 was stolen from the orbit of another sun by our own almost five billion years ago.
Researchers from Lund and Bordeaux University believe that Planet 9 was an exoplanet – a planet that orbits a star outside the solar system. Using a computer model, they have suggested Planet 9 was captured by our young sun and remained undetected until recently.
Alexander Mustill, lead author and astronomer at Lund University said: “It is almost ironic that while astronomers often find exoplanets hundreds of light years away in other solar systems, there's probably one hiding in our own backyard.”
Stars are born in clusters, often passing each other by. It is during these periods that stars can steal planets from an orbit around another star, if for example, its original orbit was too wide around the first sun it was circling.
Mustill said: “Planet 9 may very well have been 'shoved' by other planets, and when it ended up in an orbit that was too wide around its own star, our sun may have taken the opportunity to steal and capture Planet 9 from its original star. When the sun later departed from the stellar cluster in which it was born, Planet 9 was stuck in an orbit around the sun.”
If this theory is shown to be correct, researchers believe the study of space and our understanding of the sun and Earth would take a giant leap forward.
The research was published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters.
