With the focus of the media centered upon the upcoming presidential election, it may be easy to forget that there is anything else going on right now. But, it is important to remember that there are things much bigger than ourselves happening outside of our country. Even further than just outside our country borders, there are newsworthy events happening in outer space.
In the early 2000's, the world was sent into turmoil as Pluto was stripped of its title of "planet" and determined to be a dwarf planet. About a decade later, we are now possibly in the midst of adding another planet to our solar system: The Ninth Planet.
If this mysterious planet exists, it is expected to be about ten to fifteen times the size of planet Earth. Astronomers share differing opinions on whether or not it's actually out there. Some refer to it as The Ninth Planet and others are calling it Planet X. Whatever name you place on it, it's existence could answer a few huge questions in the astronomy world.
First of all, The Ninth Planet's gravity could possibly be affecting the other eight planets' orbits. There's been this confusion hovering for quite some time now about why the orbit of the planets is titled by about 6 degrees from the equator of the sun. Along with this, mysterious objects in space, that exist out past Neptune, have been noticed by astronomers. They have been called "icy bodies" and there are clusters of them. The area of our solar system where they were spotted is known as the Kuiper Belt. The movement of the objects suggest that they are orbiting something, even though they are well out of range of the rest of the planets. This means that something large, with a gravitational pull strong enough to bring objects into orbit around it, must lie in that general region.
So, let's put things in perspective. This massive planet is about ten to fifteen times the size of the planet we live on. It supposedly exists somewhere past Neptune, about 200 times the distance away from the sun than we currently are. Meanwhile, astronomers are looking through telescopes and can only see a small portion of space at a time. It may take some time to find, if it's out there.
The fact that this planet could be in our solar system and we never knew about it is a reminder of just how incredible our universe is. Keep this in mind the next time you feel like you've run out of options. You may have found eight planets already, but your own Ninth Planet could still be out there.
http://www.astronomy.com/news/2016/10/the-outer-solar-system-keeps-getting-weirder
http://www.space.com/34448-planet-nine-solar-system-tilt.html
