Planet Nine, believed to be 10 times the size of Earth, continues to enthrall astronomers who believe we have yet to see the planet because it may be hiding out there behind Neptune, the farthest known planet from the sun, Fox News reported on Monday.
Evidence of the ninth planet’s existence was first presented in 2016 by Michael Brown, a professor of planetary astronomy at the California Institute of Technology. It’s said to be more than 100 billion miles away from the sun.
There has since been widespread speculation as to whether the planet exists, but last year NASA said if it did, “it's extremely distant.”
So distant it would probably take it between 10,000 and 20,000 Earth years to make a full orbit.
This could explain why Planet Nine has not been spotted.
Kevin Luhman, an astronomer at Pennsylvania State University, said Planet Nine may remain hidden because its distance from Earth would make it appear to be 160,000 times dimmer than Neptune, making it a tough find, The Washington Post reported.
Current Earth-based telescopes are unable to find the planet, which could be hiding in the light pollution from the Milky Way, Slashgear reported.
Brown said he remained “eternally optimistic” that someone will soon find Planet Nine.
“At this stage we have so many lines of evidence that there’s a massive planet out there,” he said, according to The Guardian. “If there’s not a massive planet out there it has to be that there was one there yesterday and disappeared.”
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