NASA has confirmed the existence of the mysterious Planet Nine and is getting closer to locating it, while reiterating that there is no danger of the planet colliding with the Earth as claimed by conspiracy theorists.
Planet Nine has been the subject of debate since 2014, when it was first proposed by Caltech experts. NASA has now provided evidence that Planet Nine is somewhere out there, and the search is on to spot it.
The History Of Planet Nine
Planet Nine was theorized to explain distortions in the paths of icy minor planets at the edge of the solar system. It is believed that the planet is four times the size of Earth, with 10 times its mass.
There was a false alarm in June that Planet Nine was found, after reports in April that four potential candidates were spotted with the help of amateur astronomers.
Nobody has come close to actually spotting Planet Nine though, which has given rise to doubts that it even exists. However, NASA looks like it is getting close in tracking down the elusive planet.
Planet Nine Evidence
A press release by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Caltech presented evidence of the existence of Planet Nine.
"There are now five different lines of observational evidence pointing to the existence of Planet Nine," said Caltech planetary astrophysicist Konstantin Batygin, claiming that there will be more problems instead of solutions if Planet Nine is taken out of the equation.
Three of the clues were presented in January 2016 in the original paper by Batygin and his coauthor, Caltech astronomer Mike Brown. Two new clues have now been added from the work of graduate student Elizabeth Bailey, namely the tilting of the planets of the solar system and the objects from the Kuiper Belt that orbit at the opposite direction from all other things in the solar system.
The most important result of the updated paper is that it defined the exact orbit and behavior of Planet Nine, instead of merely suggesting that it exists.
Planet Nine Will Not Collide With The Earth
Planet Nine has been linked to another supposed world named Nibiru, which conspiracy theorist David Meade said back in January will collide with Earth in October this year. Meade later pushed his predicted date of the end of the world to Sept. 23, which turned out to be untrue after all.
NASA reiterated that Planet Nine, Nibiru, or whatever people want to call it, is very far away from the Earth and will remain that way.
