MOSCOW, January 21 - RIA Novosti. Konstantin Batygin, who discovered at the "tip of the pen" the ninth planet, located 274 times farther from the Sun than the Earth, believes that it is the last real planet in the solar system, the press service of the California Institute of Technology reports.

Last night, Russian astronomer Konstantin Batygin and his American colleague Michael Brown announced that they had managed to calculate the position of the mysterious "planet X" - the ninth, or tenth, if you count Pluto - the planet of the solar system, 41 billion kilometers away from the Sun and weighing 10 times larger than Earth.

“Although we were initially quite skeptical, when we found hints of the existence of another planet in the Kuiper belt, we continued to study its proposed orbit. Over time, we became more and more confident that it really exists. For the first time in the last 150 years, we have real evidence that we have completely completed the "census" of the planets of the solar system, "said Batygin, whose words are quoted by the press service of the magazine.

This discovery, according to Batygin and Brown, was largely due to the discovery of two other ultra-distant "inhabitants" of the solar system - dwarf planets 2012 VP113 and V774104, comparable in size to Pluto and removed from the Sun by about 12-15 billion kilometers.

Both of these planets were discovered by Chad Trujillo of the Gemini Observatory in the Hawaiian Islands (USA), a student of Brown, who, after their discovery, shared with his teacher and Batygin his observations, indicating oddities in the movement of Biden, as 2012 VP113 was called , and a number of other Kuiper objects.

An analysis of the orbits of these objects showed that some large celestial body acts on them all, forcing the orbits of these small dwarf planets and asteroids to stretch in a certain direction, the same for at least six objects from the list presented by Trujillo. In addition, the orbits of these objects were inclined to the plane of the ecliptic at the same angle - approximately 30%.

This "coincidence," scientists explain, is like clockwork moving at different speeds and pointing to the same minute every time you look at it. The probability of such an outcome of events is 0.007%, which indicates that the orbits of the "inhabitants" of the Kuiper belt were not extended by chance - they were "conducted" by some large planet located far beyond the orbit of Pluto.

Batygin's calculations show that this is definitely a "real" planet - its mass is 5 thousand times greater than that of Pluto, which most likely means that it is a gas giant like Neptune. A year on it lasts about 15 thousand years.

It rotates in an unusual orbit - its perihelion, the point of closest approach to the Sun, is located on the "side" of the solar system, where the aphelion is located - the point of maximum removal - for all other planets.

Such an orbit paradoxically stabilizes the Kuiper belt, preventing its objects from colliding with each other. So far, astronomers have not been able to see this planet because of its remoteness from the Sun, but Batygin and Brown believe that this will be done in the next 5 years, when its orbit will be calculated more accurately.

Astronomers Mike Brown and Konstantin Batygin of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena on the discovery of a candidate for the ninth planet of the solar system outside the orbit of Pluto. The find may become one of the most sensational in the current decade, comparable to the discovery of a new continent on Earth. The results of the search for Planet X, the authors published in The Astronomical Journal. Science News and Nature News briefly talk about them.

What was discovered

Planet X is an object the size of Neptune and ten times the mass of the Earth. The celestial body revolves around the Sun in a highly elongated and inclined orbit with a period of 15 thousand years. The closest distance between the Sun and Planet X is 200 astronomical units (that's seven times the distance between Neptune and the star), and the maximum is estimated at 600-1200 astronomical units. This brings the object's orbit out of the Kuiper Belt, where Pluto is located, towards the Oort cloud.

Why the ninth planet

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) definition of a planet applies only to celestial bodies in the solar system. According to it, a rounded massive body is considered a planet, having cleared the vicinity of its orbit from a large number of smaller bodies. The IAU officially recognizes the existence of five dwarf planets. One of them (Ceres) is located in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, others (Pluto, Eris, Makemake and Haumea) are beyond the orbit of Neptune. The largest of them is Pluto.

In total, there are eight planets in the solar system, according to the IAU. The largest and most massive of them is Jupiter. Pluto, by decision of the IAU in 2006, ceased to be considered a planet, since it does not meet one of the criteria that determines it (the dominance of its orbit in space). So far, astronomers have discovered more than 40 dwarf planet candidates. Scientists estimate that there may be more than two thousand dwarf planets in the solar system, of which 200 are located within the Kuiper belt (at a distance of 30 to 55 astronomical units from the Sun). The rest are outside of it.

The definition of a planet as a dwarf one is controversial among scientists. In particular, the dimensions of the celestial body can play a decisive role in this case. Planet X, being the fifth in mass and size of the celestial body of the solar system known to science, certainly cannot be considered a dwarf. The unusual orbit and origin of Planet X may lead to a revision of the IAU definition of a dwarf planet.

Image: NASA / JPL-CALTECH

How they opened

The existence of Planet X was suspected in 2014. Then Chadwick Trujillo from the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii and Scott Sheppard from the Carnegie Institution in Washington published an article in Nature, where they reported the discovery at a distance of 80 astronomical units (Pluto is 48 astronomical units from the Sun) from the Sun of the trans-Neptunian object 2012 VP113. In their work, astronomers also suggested that at a distance of 250 astronomical units from the star there is a planet larger than the Earth.

Observer astronomer Brown and computer astronomy expert Batygin decided to refute Trujillo and Sheppard's data. But it turned out differently. Scientists have discovered a new planet by analyzing data on its gravitational effects on other celestial bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. Among them, in particular, is the candidate for the dwarf planet Sedna discovered in 2003 by Brown, Trujillo and David Rabinowitz. Computer modeling and theoretical calculations carried out by Brown and Batygin explain the results of observations by the existence of Planet X. Astronomers estimate the probability of error in their conclusions at 0.007 percent.

How Planet X Came to Be

Astronomers cannot yet give an exact answer to the question of the origin of Planet X. They tend to the following hypothesis. At the dawn of the existence of the solar system, there were five large protoplanets, four of which formed modern Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. However, about three million years after their birth, the gravity of the first two celestial bodies threw Protoplanet X out of the orbit of Neptune.

Structure and composition of Planet X

The origin of Planet X suggests that it was originally similar to the ice giants Uranus and Neptune. The latter is 17 times heavier than the Earth, and its diameter is four times greater than that of the Blue Planet. Uranus and Neptune are classified as ice giants. Their atmosphere consists of gases (hydrogen, helium and hydrocarbons) and ice particles (water, ammonia and methane). Under the atmosphere of the giants is a mantle of water, ammonia and methane ice, under which lies a solid core of metals, silicates and ice. Planet X may have a similar core and mantle without a dense atmosphere.

Criticism

The celestial mechanic Alessandro Morbidelli from Nice acted as a referent for the work of scientists in The Astronomical Journal. He was optimistic about the chances of the discovery of Planet X by astronomers Brown and Batygin. Last but not least - thanks to the authority of scientists. Planetologist Hal Levison from Colorado was skeptical about the work of colleagues, citing the haste of Brown and Batygin's conclusions and the need for further verification. As the discoverers of Planet X themselves note, astronomers will believe in their discovery only when they can observe the planet through a telescope.

What's next

To detect Planet X, astronomers have booked time at Japan's Subaru Observatory in Hawaii. Trujillo and Sheppard will compete in the search for the planet with scientists. Confirmation of the existence of a celestial body can take up to five years. If discovered, the object could become the ninth planet in the solar system. Earlier searches for Planet X in the solar system led scientists to discover Neptune (in 1864) and Pluto (in 1930). There is little doubt that the existence of a ninth planet will be confirmed.

Exactly two years ago, California Institute of Technology scientists Konstantin Batygin and Michael Brown published, once again rekindling hopes that another planet could be found in the solar system, located much further than Pluto. More about the history of the search for the ninth planet and the significance of the calculations of Batygin and Brown at the request N+1 says blogger and promoter of astronautics Vitaly "Green Cat" Egorov.

In the astronomical environment, for two years they have been discussing a sensation that does not yet exist. A number of indirect signs indicate that somewhere in the solar system, much further than Pluto, there is another planet. So far, it has not been found, but the approximate location has been calculated. If there is no error in the calculations, then this will be the most important astronomical discovery of the century.

The first planet discovered "on the tip of a pen" was Neptune - back in the 1830s, astronomers drew attention to unforeseen deviations in the orbit of Uranus and suggested that there was another planet behind it, which caused a gravitational perturbation. The hypothesis was confirmed in 1846, when Neptune could be observed in a mathematically predicted region of the sky. It turned out that he had been seen before, but could not be distinguished from distant stars. The average distance to Neptune is 4.5 billion kilometers, or about 30 astronomical units (one astronomical unit is equal to the distance from the Sun to the Earth - about 150 million kilometers).

The optimism after the discovery of Neptune inspired many scientists and amateur astronomers to search for other, more distant planets. Further observations of Neptune and Uranus showed a discrepancy between the actual movement of the planets and the mathematically predicted, and this gave confidence that the sensation of 1846 could be repeated. It seemed that in 1930 the search was crowned with success when Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto at a distance of about 40 astronomical units.

Clyde Tombaugh

For a long time, Pluto was the only known object in the solar system located farther from the Sun than Neptune. And as the quality of astronomical technology grew, ideas about the size of Pluto constantly changed downward. By the middle of the century, it was believed that it had a size comparable to the Earth, and a very dark surface. In 1978, it was possible to clarify the mass of Pluto thanks to the discovery of its satellite Charon. It turned out that it is much smaller not only than Mercury, but even the Earth's Moon.

By the end of the 20th century, thanks to digital photography and computer data processing, discoveries of other trans-Neptunian objects smaller than Pluto began. At first, out of habit, they were called planets. There were ten of them in the solar system, then eleven, then twelve. But by the early 2000s, astronomers sounded the alarm. It became clear that the solar system does not end beyond Neptune, and it is not good to give the status of Earth and Jupiter to each ice block. In 2006, a separate name was coined for pluto-like bodies - a dwarf planet. There are eight planets again, just like a century ago.

Meanwhile, the search for real planets outside the orbits of Neptune and Pluto did not stop. There were even hypotheses about the presence of a red or brown dwarf there, that is, a small star-like body with a mass of several tens of Jupiters, which makes up a double star system with the Sun. This hypothesis was prompted by ... dinosaurs and other extinct animals. A group of scientists drew attention to the fact that mass extinctions on Earth occur approximately every 26 million years, and suggested that this is the period of the return of a massive body to the vicinity of the inner solar system, which leads to an increase in the number of comets rushing towards the Sun and hitting the Earth. In many media, these hypotheses came in the form of anti-scientific predictions about an impending attack by aliens from the planet or star Nibiru.

On the X axis - millions of years before the present day, on the Y axis - bursts of extinction of biological species on Earth

NASA has twice attempted to find a possible planet or brown dwarf. In 1983, the IRAS space telescope carried out a complete mapping of the celestial sphere in the infrared range. The telescope has made observations of tens of thousands of sources of thermal radiation, discovered several asteroids and comets in the solar system, and caused a sensation in the press when scientists mistakenly mistook a distant galaxy for a Jupiter-like planet. In 2009, a similar, but more sensitive and long-lived WISE telescope flew, which managed to find several brown dwarfs, but at a distance of several light years, that is, not related to the solar system. He also showed that in our system there are no planets the size of Saturn or Jupiter beyond Neptune either.

No one has been able to see a new planet or a nearby star so far. Either it is not there at all, or it is too cold and emits or reflects too little light to be detected by a random search. Scientists still have to rely on indirect signs: the features of the movement of other, already discovered cosmic bodies.

At first, encouraging data was obtained in the anomalies of the orbits of Uranus and Neptune, but in 1989 it was found that the reason for the anomalies was an erroneous determination of the mass of Neptune: it turned out to be five percent lighter than previously thought. After correcting the data, the simulation began to coincide with the observations, and the hypothesis of the ninth planet was dropped.

Some researchers have thought about the reasons for the appearance of long-period comets in the inner solar system and about the source of short-period comets. Long-period comets can appear near the Sun once every hundreds or millions of years. Short-period orbits around the Sun in 200 years or less, that is, they are much closer.

Comets have a very short lifetime by cosmic standards. Their main material is ice of various origins: from water, methane, cyanide, etc. The sun's rays evaporate the ice, and the comet turns into an imperceptible stream of dust. However, short-period comets continue to circle the Sun today, billions of years after the formation of the solar system. This means that their number is replenished from some external source.

The Oort Cloud is considered such a source - a hypothetical region with a radius of up to 1 light year, or 60 thousand astronomical units, around the Sun. It is believed that there are millions of pieces of ice flying in circular orbits. But periodically something changes their orbit and launches them towards the Sun. What this force is is still unknown: it may be a gravitational disturbance from neighboring stars, the results of collisions in a cloud, or the influence of a large body in it. For example, it could be a planet a little larger than Jupiter - it was even given the name Tyukhe. The authors of the Tyche hypothesis assumed that the WISE telescope would be able to find it, but the discovery did not take place.

Oort cloud (above: the orange line shows the conditional orbit of objects from the Kuiper belt, the yellow line shows the orbit of Pluto

If the Oort Cloud is only a hypothetical family of small Solar System bodies that astronomers cannot observe directly, then another family, the Kuiper Belt, is much better understood. Pluto is the first Kuiper Belt body to be discovered. Three more dwarf planets the size of Pluto or smaller and more than a thousand small bodies have now been discovered there.

The Kuiper belt family is characterized by circular orbits, a slight inclination to the plane of rotation of the known planets of the solar system - the plane of the ecliptic - and circulation within 30 and 55 astronomical units. On the inner side, the Kuiper belt breaks off in the orbit of Neptune, in addition, this planet exerts a gravitational perturbation on the belt. The reason for the sharp outer boundary of the belt is unknown. This suggests the presence of another full-fledged planet somewhere at a distance of 50 astronomical units.

Behind the Kuiper belt, although partially intersecting with it, lies the region of the scattered disk. On the contrary, the small bodies of this disk are characterized by highly elongated elliptical orbits and a significant inclination to the ecliptic plane. New hopes for the discovery of the ninth planet and heated discussions among astronomers gave rise to the bodies of the scattered disk.

Some objects in the scattered disk are so far from Neptune that it has no gravitational influence on them. A separate term "isolated trans-Neptunian object" was coined for them. One such known object, called Sedna, approaches the Sun by 76 astronomical units and moves away by 1000 astronomical units, so it is simultaneously considered the first found object of the Oort Cloud. Some known bodies of the scattered disk have less extreme orbits, and some, on the contrary, have an even more elongated orbit and a strong inclination of the orbital plane.

According to the calculations of the authors of the fresh hypothesis, "their" planet can have an elongated orbit, approaching the Sun by 200 and moving away by 1200 astronomical units. Its exact location in the earth's sky has not yet been calculated, but the approximate search area is gradually shrinking. The search is being conducted using the Subaru Optical Telescope in Hawaii and the Victor Blanco Telescope in Chile. In order to further confirm the existence of the planet and clarify its possible location, it is required to find more bodies of the scattered disk. Now these searches are ongoing, the work has a high priority, and new finds are emerging. However, the expected planet is still elusive.

If astronomers knew where to look, they might be able to see the planet and estimate its size. But "long-range" telescopes have too narrow a field of view to carry out a free search over large areas of the sky. For example, the famous Hubble space telescope has examined less than 10 percent of the entire celestial sphere in its 25 years of operation. But the search continues, and if the ninth planet of the solar system is still found, it will become a real sensation in astronomy.

Vitaly Egorov

Astronomers Kat Volk and Renu Malhotra of the University of Arizona have published a study in The Astronomical Journal that suggests a previously undiscovered Mars-sized planet in the solar system may be at the outer edge of the Kuiper belt. Scientists came to this conclusion by analyzing the orbital deviations of 600 bodies. The inclination of their rotation differs from the inclination of the orbits of the observed planets of the solar system. Therefore, they are affected by the gravitational field of the celestial body, which is not visible to astronomers, the researchers note.

“The most logical explanation for our calculations is the presence of an invisible celestial body. Our calculations suggest that an object comparable in size to Mars can have such an impact on the orbital inclination, ”the Arizona specialists said in a statement.

Volk and Malhotra suggest that Planet 10 is at the outer edge of the Kuiper Belt, 55 astronomical units from the Sun. However, not all of their colleagues involved in the search for celestial bodies agree with the conclusions of scientists from the University of Arizona. Astronomer Konstantin Batygin, co-author of a study on the alleged ninth planet, believes that one should not rush to conclusions.

“The object may turn out to be less mass, and not even fall into the framework in which it can be called a planet,” the expert believes.

Planet 9

Recall that Konstantin Batygin himself, together with astrophysicist Michael Brown, made a similar discovery. In 2016, scientists announced that they had found Planet 9 by analyzing disturbances found in the outer solar system.

• Reuters

The mass of Batygin and Brown's hypothetical ninth planet is ten times the mass of the Earth, in contrast to the relatively small size of Planet 10.

According to the version put forward by Brown and Batygin, the planet could have formed in the solar system, and then it was pushed into a more distant orbit under the influence of the gravitational force of Jupiter or Saturn.

The authors of the study calculated that the hypothetical ninth planet, moving in orbit, moves away from the Sun more than 1000 times farther than the Earth. And even at the closest point, the distance is at least 200 times greater than the average distance from the Earth to the Sun. And Planet 9 makes one revolution around the star within 10-20 thousand years.

It is worth noting that a number of scientists are skeptical about the hypothesis of the presence of another planet in the solar system, but Batygin is sure of its existence.

“The number of seemingly unrelated mysteries in the life of the solar system, which are solved by the assumption of a ninth planet, is too large for this to be a mere coincidence,” he insists.

Planet X

Initially, the idea of ​​the presence of unknown planets in the solar system was born not as a scientific hypothesis, but as a near-scientific myth. Since the middle of the 20th century, supporters of alternative theories have been talking about Nibiru, a planet supposedly located between Mars and Jupiter.

The start of the legend of the sinister planet was given by the American psychiatrist of Russian origin Immanuel Velikovsky. In his writings, he assumed that many significant events in ancient history, including biblical ones, took place against the backdrop of planetary cataclysms in the solar system and were due to them. He argued that the planets changed their orbits and even collided before the eyes of ancient civilizations, and the planet Tiamat, or Phaethon, was destroyed by an unknown body passing through the solar system, as a result of which an asteroid belt formed around Mars.

• Due to the hostility of the scientific community, Velikovsky experienced a spiritual crisis, but he did not give up his ideas and continued to develop them.

The psychiatrist's books, despite their large circulations, aroused such public indignation in the United States that the phenomenon of extraordinary aggression against the researcher received its own name - the Velikovsky case.

However, the book of the American writer Zecharia Sitchin, who independently engaged in the translation of the Sumerian clay tablets, really provoked the seekers of the mysterious Planet X, noting that previous researchers had overlooked the most important details about the level of astronomical knowledge of the Sumerians. Sitchin claimed that the Sumerians were aware of the existence of a "rogue planet" they called Nibiru, and perceived it as an absolutely real celestial body. He went even further, stating that Nibiru is inhabited, and it is inhabited by the civilization of the so-called Anunnaki - the mysterious progenitors of mankind, who created homo sapiens for exhausting work in the "gold" mines of Mesopotamia and Africa.

His translations are not taken seriously in the scientific community, but because of the beautiful and full of secrets of history, they are popular with a fairly wide audience. Sitchin's work was criticized in his works by William Irwin Thompson, professor of humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and York University, Roger Wescott, professor of anthropology and linguistics at Drew University (New Jersey), and other eminent scientists. According to Michael Heizer, a researcher of ancient languages, Zecharia Sitchin took words out of context and heavily distorted their meaning.

“Supporting the conclusions with his translations of pre-Nubian and Sumerian texts, the writer, for example, claimed that these ancient civilizations knew 12 planets, although in fact they knew only five, of which there is no doubt,” Heizer wrote.

Now, when astrophysicists and astronomers of famous universities are studying unknown bodies of the solar system, and volunteers from all over the world help them in this, it can be hoped that the riddle of the “wandering planet”, whether it is the ninth or tenth in a row, will be solved.

In 2006, Pluto was stripped of its status as the ninth planet in the solar system thanks to the efforts of one astronomer, Michael Brown. Together with his colleagues, he discovered, and then other dwarf planets far beyond the orbit of Neptune. Thus, he proved that Pluto is not remarkable and big enough to be called a full-fledged planet. However, now Brown and our compatriot Konstantin Batygin are claiming that the new Planet 9 is already almost open ... and that all that remains is to see it.

Yes, yes, no one has yet seen the “almost open” ninth planet of the solar system! In fact, its discovery is the fruit of long observations of the orbits of other planets. According to Kepler and Newton, the place of each planet in the solar system is determined by its characteristics, mainly by mass. And if the orbit does not correspond to the parameters of the planet or is generally anomalous, then it is influenced by some other, no less massive object. The first planet discovered by mathematical equations, and not live observations, was - in 1846 it was found at a place calculated by the French mathematician Urbain Le Verrier.

Moreover, the planets can influence each other very actively - in the past of the solar system they traveled hundreds of millions of kilometers, approaching and moving away from the Sun. The gas giants were especially distinguished here. In young planetary systems, they absorb all the embryos of the planets and hang close to the star - as close as Mercury. Because of this, they become very hot and become unstable. Scientists call such planets "hot Jupiters" or "hot Neptunes" - depending on their mass and size.

Troubled History of the Solar System

However, Jupiter, the largest and most influential planet, changed everything in the solar system. Initially appearing at a distance of 5 to 10 from the Sun, it provoked active collisions of scattered material in the protoplanetary disk around the star. This gave impetus to the creation of other gas giants, such as Saturn or Neptune, at distances equally close to the Sun.

However, the newly formed planets behaved "ungratefully", following the laws of gravity - they pushed their "parent" closer to the Sun, into the modern orbit of Mars. Thus, Jupiter invaded the inner part of the solar system. In other planetary systems, this part is the most saturated with matter and space objects. But the heavy tread of the mass of Jupiter scattered the embryos of planets and asteroids there, throwing them into the nuclear furnace of the Sun or throwing them to the outskirts of the system in the zone of modern and.

If not for Saturn, which bound Jupiter with an orbital resonance and did not bring it into a modern orbit, the gas giant could completely ruin the solar system, throwing out 99% of the planetary matter from it. However, his travels did not go unnoticed - so Neptune and Uranus changed their orbits, forming most of the long-period comets.

Ultimately, an unusual balance reigned in the solar planetary system - gas giants that form near the star ended up on the outskirts, and "solid planets" like the Earth migrated closer to the Sun. However, some astronomers believed that another planet was needed to achieve such a balance - and one massive enough to influence the large Neptune and Uranus. It, Planet X, was searched for by many astronomers for a century and a half - and it seems that Brown and Batygin finally got close to it.

History of the search for planet X

After Le Verrier calculated Neptune from perturbations in Uranus's orbit, astronomers found that even its presence did not explain the features of the ice giant's orbit. For some time they tried to find another planet that could influence the last large objects of the solar system - however, they managed to find only Pluto, which, by mass and direction of the orbit, could not disturb larger bodies in any way. The issue of Uranus-Neptune anomalies was finally resolved by "", who measured the mass of Neptune in 1989 and thereby found that there are no contradictions in the orbits.

By that time, the power of telescopes had grown significantly, which allowed astronomers to look into the depths of the solar system. Many trans-Neptunian objects have been discovered - dwarf planets and large asteroids, whose closest orbital point is further from the Sun than Neptune. So, in 2005, the already mentioned Eris was discovered, the second largest dwarf planet after Pluto. And in 2003 they found an object with diameters over 2 thousand kilometers, which moves away from the Sun at a distance of 1.4 × 10 11 km - further than any large trans-Neptunian object! It soon acquired a whole family of "sednoids", isolated trans-Neptunian objects with similar characteristics.

The ninth planet - where and why?

Observing the newly discovered planetoids, astronomers C. Trujillo and S. Sheppard, colleagues, discovered an interesting pattern. Most of them have elongated, comet-like orbits that briefly come "close" to the Sun, at a distance of 40 to 70 astronomical units, and then move away for hundreds or even thousands of years. And the larger the object, the stronger its removal. In addition, the sednoids deviated from the Sun in the same direction.

Such a coincidence could be an accident, if we are talking about simple comets - over the billions of years of the history of the solar system, they were scattered by all the major planets, especially the already mentioned "travelers" Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune. However, for such a coincidence in the deviations of large objects, a very large planet is needed, whose orbit would reach the Oort cloud.

Here Brown and Batygin distinguished themselves - by comparing the orbital characteristics of sednoids, they found mathematically that the probability of their random coincidence is only 0.007%. Scientists went further and compiled a computer model aimed at finding the characteristics of the planet, capable of changing the orbits of bodies located beyond Neptune. The data they received in January 2016 became the basis for the announcement of the pre-discovery of a new planet in the solar system.

Characteristics of Planet X

In his interviews, Brown claims that the probability of finding a new planet is 90%. However, until it is actually discovered, with the help of a telescope, it is too early to talk about the final discovery. Nevertheless, the calculated characteristics of Planet 9 have been published - they will be used in future searches.

• The orbital parameters of Planet X will be mirrored to those of the sednoids - the orbit of the planet will still be elongated and inclined relative to the plane of the main planets of the solar system, but directed in the opposite direction. Accordingly, the perihelion of the planet - the point of maximum approach to the Sun - will be 200 astronomical units at the nearest point, and the aphelion - the maximum distance - will reach 1200 astronomical units. This is even more than Sedna! A year on Planet 9 will last up to 20,000 Earth years, which is how long it may take to complete the entire orbit.

A planet distant from the Sun is difficult to detect - this requires telescopes operating in the infrared spectrum, or powerful optical devices that can capture even the smallest sun glare on the surface. On infrared telescopes, work will move faster, but errors are possible - and on optical telescopes, the result will be reliable, albeit at the cost of time. The WISE Infrared Orbiting Telescope, which conducted broadband surveys in 2009, has not yet found Planet X, although it has provided fairly detailed images.

Therefore, Brown, Batygin and other astronomers are planning to find it using the Subaru telescop in the Hawaiian Islands, which is considered one of the largest and highest quality in the world - the diameter of its main mirror exceeds 8 meters! In addition, it is capable of operating both in the optical and in the infrared ranges of light. But even with such a tool, it will take scientists at least 5 years to put an end to the issue of Planet X.