A jealous ninth planet might alienate its siblings for attention. If a massive ninth planet exists in our solar system, it may explain why all the planets are not in line with the sun. After birth, the eight major planets revolved around the sun in the original plane. The sun rotates on its own axis, but its axis is tilted: it is located at an angle of 6 degrees relative to a line perpendicular to the plane of the planets.
Several theories could explain this unusual skew, including a temporary tug passing by the star a long time ago, or interactions between the Sun's magnetic fields and the primary disk of dust from which the solar system emerged. But they don't explain otherwise.
Recently, astronomers have proposed a new explanation: a hypothetical massive planet in the outer solar system could mix the orbits of other planets.
Earlier this year, Michael Brown and Konstantin Batygin of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena stated that a ninth planet could be responsible for the strange movement of a number of ice worlds in the outer solar system. If you connect their theory to the one described above, meaning begins to be seen in the machinations of heaven.
Elizabeth Bailey, also of Caltech who has worked with Brown and Batygin, says the idea can be extrapolated to the orbits of all other planets.
“Since we think the ninth planet is significantly tilted, if it exists, it would follow that it tilts other objects," says Bailey. And it will tilt exactly as needed. "This seems to be the missing piece of the puzzle that speaks in support of the ninth planet hypothesis."
This planet should be 5-20 times more massive than Earth and have an extremely eccentric orbit, going 250 AU. e. from the Sun at a further point. This elongated trajectory has led to speculations that this exoplanet was once abducted by our sun.
If it happened early enough, then its gravitational influence at the dawn of the solar system was strong enough to pull the planets out of the orbital plane, says Bailey. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune all moved as one, so planet nine could not move them individually like billiard balls. Instead, she shifted the entire solar system.
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The tilt of the ninth planet, not its mass, played a decisive role, says Alessandro Morbidelli of the Cote d'Azur Observatory in Nice, France, who independently reached the same conclusion. If it were mass, Jupiter would be the first on the list of suspects.
“The important thing is that the troublemaker is out of the plane. Jupiter simply cannot tilt itself,”he says.
However, the tilt of the sun does not prove the existence of a ninth planet. The telescope will prove it.
ILYA KHEL